Sacrifice

For an old band like Saxon, this is a tremendously energetic, for-the-throat album of hard-rocking, groovy heavy metal. Sacrifice is the band's 21st motherfucking album, and they sound about as good if not better than they did back in the day – actually, as treasonous as it sounds, this is the best album I have heard from this long-standing band.

It's just all-killer, no-filler. This is heavy metal with the fat cut out – a lean, mean machine of an album with absolutely no weak spots and no erroneous things that needed to be cut out. It's a very straightforward work and it relies on a long-standing verse-chorus formula for every track, but its execution is flawless and the energy and attitude combined with great hooks are what make this work. The production is clear and sharp as a newly-minted knife blade, and the riffs are pure quality – just monstrously headbangable slabs of metallic fury from a band that helped write the book on the style back in the 70s.

Every song just knows how this is done – the opening title track has a great, hammering riff and a shout-along chorus that rules. “Blooood oooooon stooooone!” Fuck yeah. “Made In Belfast” is a midtempo groover that will break your windows with the best chorus on the album. “Warriors Of The Road” - another kick ass, brutally good riff 'n' chorus combo. “Guardians Of The Tomb” is even better than that with its superheavy grooves and badass lyrics. It just keeps going, with every song keeping up the same consistency, no dead spots or weak moments.

I think Saxon on here got their formula down to a science. The way these songs are written and performed is a great marriage of efficient and exciting songwriting with supercharged, aggressive performances. They don't do anything new, yet the tried-and-true traditions are carried out with aplomb and made to sound fresh again. There are no gimmicks here and the band has cut out everything that doesn't need to be there in their formula - every minute of this is great. For heavy metal, this is a gold standard album and more young bands should look to albums like this to see how to do this genre right.