Inspirations

The market has recently been flooded with cover albums. Some of them were great such as Anubis Gate's creative, experimental and surprising Covered in Colours. Others were decent such as Beyond the Black's diversified, inspired and intimate W:O:A Acoustic Clash (The Lockdown Session). Others yet again were fairly average such as BlutEngel's danceable, formulaic and melodic Fountain of Destiny. Some releases were slightly underwhelming like Billy Joe Armstrong's old-fashioned, predictable and uninspired No Fun Mondays. Saxon's Inspirations is however the worst of all those cover albums and can only be described as mediocre at best.

The problem starts with a look at the track list. This album includes eleven old-fashioned tunes with a timid running time of thirty-six minutes that have mostly been covered on numerous occasions already.

The quality of the tracks is another issue. The overlapping vocals in the opening ''Paint It Black'' by The Rolling Stones sound mildly confusing. Led Zeppelin's ''Immigrant Song'' lacks the power of the original tune in the vocal department. The same goes for the lackluster rendition of AC/DC's ''Problem Child''.

To be fair however, some of the covered tracks sound decent. Crow's ''Evil Woman'' surprises with dominant bass guitar sounds that add a healthy dose of energy. Toto's ''Hold the Line'' finds the perfect balance between energy and melody thanks to its gritty guitar play. Other positive elements are the warm production that blends in appropriately and the cool cover artwork.

At the end of the day however, this album is only interesting for die-hard Saxon fans. For everyone else, this album is only useful as background music recalling classic rock tracks while doing something else. This release would have been a nice gimmick as a bonus disc of a regular album but isn't worth to be purchased on its own.