Ghosts

No, it wasn’t truth be told, as the German powerhouse made another stopover from their solid, not very compromising staple power/speed metal delivery with the album here; a momentary pause that made more heads shake in doubt than the earlier one made with “Reflections of a Shadow” a decade prior. Although I personally didn’t see this album coming it shouldn’t have come as a huge surprise for the majority provided that the late-90’s were still uncertain times with bigger names (Megadeth, Kreator, Judas Priest a bit later) messing it up in a much less forgivable manner. The restoration-of-the-old-school campaign already existed on paper, and was also officially signed at the time, but experimentations of all sorts were still being offered amply.

In fact, the experiments in the Rage camp started earlier, with the lush symphonic wonder “Lingua Mortis”, later nicely elaborated on “XIII”, and the more stream-lined traditional metal delivery on “End of All Days”. The stalwarts were simply not willing to fall into self-repetition traps that have ensnared quite a few of their compatriots (Running Wild, Sacred Steel, Grave Digger, etc.), but were looking to keep in pace with the leaders Blind Guardian and Helloween without drastically changing their arsenal.

Again, the band were not strangers to more deviant recordings, the mellower, more progressive 1990 opus comes to mind again, but that effort was necessary if the guys wanted to wash away the thrash and forge their own sound, which is exactly what happened. Mission accomplished back then on all counts, but what did they want to wash away this time? Unless they were looking for new paths to explore…

no, Peter Wagner and his flippant, not very reliant gang were not chasing new (invisible) horizons as became quite obvious from the subsequent “Welcome to the Other Side”. The man wanted to give another go to his milder orchestral infatuations this time without aggrandizing the environment with rowdy speed metal riffage which presence was quite prominent on “XIII”. And here we are, staring at ghosts and spirits which don’t look very scary or angry, trying to lure us into a not very nefarious hypnotic doom-laden plot with “Beginning of The End” and, of course, the title-track the delivery on those recalling the progressive metallers Saviour Machine. Not terribly off-putting especially with more dynamic cuts (“Fear”, “Wash My Sins Away”) provided here and there, those recalling the classic heavy metal nature of “End of All Days”. However, things take a downright lethargic turn at some stage with balladic/semi-balladic elegies (“Love and Fear Unite”, “Vanished in Haze”), with goofy radio-friendly rockers (“Spiritual Awakening”) not helping much in keeping the listener hooked. Sleep-inducing stuff, also enhanced with the overlong doomy melancholy “Tomorrow's Yesterday” that may drive the audience away way before the end which would be a pity as the epitaph comprises two boisterous power/speedsters that may have been left out of the “Black in Mind” recording sessions.

A very introspective effort that, if nothing else, brought Wagner’s progressive operatic ambitions to a close; an underwhelming close, though, one that made the band fans quite apprehensive regarding any future exploits. Still, in the instilling late-90’s quagmire of “Endoramas” and “Risks” finding a ghost floating next to you didn’t seem like the worst occurrence, but compared with superior adjustments works released at the same time like Blind Guardian’s bombastic epic “Nightfall in Middle Earth” and Helloween’s macabre tenebrous “The Dark Ride” this album didn’t present Rage as worthy contenders to those two. There wasn’t much rage left in the band’s repertoire to promise a solid helping shoulder to the spawning old school revival wave… just a bit more than a reflection of a shadow of it.

How happy the band were with the final result here became only too clear a few months later when the entire line-up, save for Wagner of course, packed up and left. That was some way to exorcize whatever ghosts and sprits were roaming around the band camp… a clean slate of some sorts ensued with the follow-up blending the primal aggression of old with still standing operatic tools, Wagner’s new team looking/sounding good, staying around for three solid entries that almost brought the delivery back to the glory days of the 80’s and the 90’s. Rage’s presence on the contemporary scene is strong again, no second opinion about that; however, whenever a pertinent smell of deja-vu rises in the air or someone sees the word “predictable” being spelt (p-r-e-d…, just that) across the horizon, rest assured that Mr. Wagner will dissipate those with another shadowy, ghostly transmogrifier.