Condition Red

Stuff like this gives ammo to those who criticize the power metal genre of stagnancy. Condition Red almost listens like a Greatest Hits of Iron Savior with it's liberal borrowing from the band's heritage, except that Iron Savior can't even copy itself well. Nearly everything on this album reeks of an unmotivated band deliberately recycling the musical ideas of its previous works. I consider it deliberate because too often riffs and vocal melodies replicated from earlier songs have a slight "twist" as if to disguise the larceny. Unfortunately, this usually results in the dilution of what was once top quality power metal.

The high appraisal of this album truly astounds me because it takes only one listen to "Ironbound" to hear the phenomenon I described above. If I were Iron Savior I would be ashamed to put such a blatant cobble of previous material on an album. The truly saddening part of Condition Red is that the main offender is Piet. While the riffs usually stay in generic metal form, Piet's vocals sound eerily similar to other songs in the band's catalogue. I wonder how such an amazing vocalist and perhaps the most unique and interesting part of Iron Savior was suddenly reduced to such shoddy reprocessing.

Which is not to say there aren't a few highlights. I particularly enjoy the last two songs which could easily stand on their own in any of the first three albums. Furthermore, even songs that nearly amount to a rearrangement of past Iron Savior material still stands as some of the better material in the genre.