Sacrifice

After the rip-roaring success of Call to Arms, I sensed a holding pattern in the works. I predicted the next album would be even burlier 80's recidivism, replete with a grayscale album cover of Cecil Rhodes and his massive butt-chin that can be seen from orbit. But Saxon, a band so routinely lambasted for recording the same album over and over, had other plans. Famously described as "Less tricks, more power" by Biff Byford, Sacrifice turned out to be one of Saxon's most aggressive, thuggish albums. Just like Motörhead's Sacrifice.

With a bold, incursive impetus and an effervescent production I'll discuss at greater length soon, Sacrifice is a dramatic reversal from the fun-loving retro romp that was Call to Arms. Frankly, it's a reversal from just about everything up to this point. Apart from the errant Metalhead vibe I get from the beefy, downtuned riffs that gurgle throughout 'Wheels of Terror' and 'Made in Belfast', Saxon's twentieth album is still managing to explore new pastures. I don't know what's in that Yorkshire tea they're drinking, but maybe they ought to share some with every other NWOBHM band putting out a dreary comeback album just lately.

In spite of the less tricks, more power approach, the songwriting of Sacrifice possesses a charming amount of depth and variety. I know I praised Call to Arms for its convergent, focused approach to songwriting, but deep-down I was missing the time when Saxon hammed it up and wrote songs about gargoyles coming to life. Here we see a very multi-cultural Saxon explore Asiatic and Mesoamerican themes in 'Guardians of the Tomb' and the title track, respectively. What begins as a contemplative plucking of a Chinese zither, that I immediately compare to Chun-Li's theme from Street Fighter II because I'm so culturally sophisticated, quickly ramps up into a memorable series of crushing chords and a resonant chorus emphasizing the eeriness of the Terracotta Army.

Adding to the stable of memorable tracks is 'Warriors of the Road' and the so-Accept-it-hurts 'Stand Up and Fight'. The latter is often panned and accused of being filler, but I find myself routinely going back to its earworm melody and the wonderfully accented guitar passages. It's worth noting that it's the most Call to Arms this album ever gets; notice how even its track title is an overt callback to the Saxon classic 'Stand Up (And be Counted)'. 'Warriors of the Road' is in the same vein; an appropriately breakneck ode to formula one racing with Exciter-esque riffs and a vocal delivery more versatile than previous outings like 'Afterburner'. And believe it or not, this album also possess the odd subtlety or two. 'Made In Belfast' features a bridge where Quinn's guitar and Glocker's snares sync up with the sound of shipbuilders pounding rivets into a ship's hull. It's the little things, you know?

You've been waiting very patiently for my production comment, so here goes. For the first time since 1997, this album is not produced by Charlie Bauerfiend, but rather Andy Sneap. And let's get this out in the open, I think Sneap is a talented producer capable of finding and reviving every angstrom of subtlety in the mix. Just feast your ears on that smooth, buttery bass vibrating through the bluesy 'Standing in a Queue' if you want proof. However, this extremely fastidious approach is bound to be a turn-off for some Saxon purists, as its garden-variety cleanliness is at odds with the band's inherent uncleanliness.

Aside from that and the forgettable mega-fluff 'Night of the Wolf', Sacrifice continues Saxon's winning streak without much of a fuss. For those keeping score at home, that's eight consecutive albums I've deemed acceptable, phenomenal, and anything in between. In fact, without that unfortunate definition of insanity that plagued much of their 80's output, Saxon would possess one of the most consistent, densely populated heavy metal discographies outside of Motörhead.

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.

Some albums are free from major flaws. Nevertheless, they have a serious problem. If there are two or three songs that overtop the remaining pieces in a very significant manner, I am always tempted to reduce these ambivalent outputs to their essential tracks. And it is particularly problematic if there is only one song that shows the full song-writing skills of the band. "Sacrifice" is among these albums and its "problem" is called "Made in Belfast". This brilliant piece leaves the rest of the solid full-length in the dust.

But before I dissect the highlight of the album, I want to give an overall impression. "Sacrifice" features the usual stuff of Saxon. Crusty mid-tempo tunes are based on straight verses and more or less catchy choruses. Biff 's vocals give no reason for complaint and the other four musicians also play their role in a technically flawless manner. But it cannot be ignored that the solidly designed tunes lack of outstanding lines. I miss two or three choruses which get stuck in my head easily. "Night of the Wolf" almost meets my expectations, but I always have the feeling that the band does not use its full potential. As a counter example to the aforementioned song, I would like to mention "Warriors of the Road". It is an actually good up-tempo number, but the band is running out of ideas during the boring chorus. Too bad that the chorus of "Walking the Steel" also lacks of a convincing idea, because the rest of the song leaves a positive impression. These minor flaws are more or less concealed by the sharp, powerful and clean production, but it goes without saying that the compositional shortcomings cannot be fully compensated by the technical opportunities of a sound studio.

"Made in Belfast" lends the album the necessary brightness. Its fragile guitars at the beginning make room for extremely coherent melody lines that offer the proper amount of heaviness. They lead to an overwhelming chorus. Based on excellent riffs, the chorus crowns a song which describes the work in a shipyard. A metallic hammering and of course the lyrics express the pride of the working class in a very suitable manner. Biff takes us to the docks and great pictures of sweaty workers and wonderful ships emerge before the inner eye. Simply said, everything fits.

Grumbler might say that "Sacrifice" just offers more of the same. I understand their point of view, but I would like to express it more positively. In terms of music, "Sacrifice" is another honest and homogeneous album of Saxon. Furthermore, I do not care that the majority of the lyrics does not deliver anything new. It seems as if the old guys are still fans of their music and I cannot see any signs of weariness or apathy. Quite the opposite, everybody performs with dedication and the band finds the right balance between harshness ("Wheels of Terror") and harmony ("Stand Up and Fight"). Nevertheless, something is missing. The lack of a greater number of divine moments prevents a higher rating.

If it is stipulated that the 1980s was a period of volatility in Saxon's extensive career, the turn of the millennium has most definitely ushered in an era of rigid, militaristic consistency for said NWOBHM proponents. Whether one wishes to attribute this to the band learning the hard way that playing to a fickle mainstream with watered down arena rock is a bad idea, or just a continued practice of following trends in metal circles that began pointing back to a harder edged sound in the later 1990s, things have definitely tended quite a bit closer to a heavier, but still rock oriented take on things. If there is any gripe to be made about the direction being taken, it is that Saxon has found themselves largely repeating the same general formula with about the same narrowness as AC/DC. Nevertheless, for anyone that hungers for the sort of fun loving early 80s sound that first ushered in the Saxon beast, the past several albums have been a predictable mix of good and solid, and Sacrifice continues the tradition without fail.

In relation to recent endeavors such as The Inner Sanctum and Into The Labyrinth, this album shares a fair amount of commonality, though it differs in being a bit less lopsided and more consistently on target. A few songs such as "Guardians Of The Tomb" and the title song "Sacrifice" tend to stand out in having a more grandiose, to the point of being slightly power metal-like flavor to them, but the atmosphere is a bit more toned down with fewer keyboard elements and massive chorus sections than parallel songs on the two aforementioned albums. There is also a somewhat enthralling yet fleeting acoustic gimmick that paints the extremities of "Made In Belfast", but the overall feel of things is much chunkier and reliant on punchy guitar grooves and a pummeling metallic edge. Though some of this can be credited to a guitar sound that is a bit heavier than the last couple of albums, the overall tone and tenor of this album definitely leans towards a Judas Priest character.

In essence, Sacrifice carries that same early period spirit of raw aggression that doesn't quite turn into speed metal, but flirts with it fairly frequently. Much of what rounds out the contents of this album is about as catchy and captivating as the denser, more epic sounding material, but does so with a basic set of riffs and an old school sense of speed and fury. "Warriors Of The Road" and "Stand Up And Fight" are the most memorable of the bunch, with the latter having a slight bit of a Ram It Down air to it with a shred happy guitar presentation but an otherwise sing-song character to it. "Night Of The Wolf" has more of a creeping sense of speed and relies a bit more on guitar work than speedy drums to get the job done, and it also brings back some atmospheric elements into play here and there. But perhaps the biggest dose of old school excitement is the guitar solo section of "Wheels Of Terror", an otherwise mid-tempo crusher that shifts into a thrill ride to rival much of Primal Fear's handiwork.

With more than half of this band being well past 60 years old, it's astounding to think that they still have enough energy to make music like this, but surprisingly enough everyone is still at the top of their game here, particularly Biff Byford. This sounds young and powerful enough to have been put together by a band half as old as the one featured here, but with an execution that is just a tad too polished and nuanced to have been put together back in the early 80s when Saxon was at their metallic zenith. While it would definitely be presumptuous to fully liken this album to Wheels Of Steel and Strong Arm Of The Law, those are the albums that come to mind when trying to nail down the nature of these songs. It has become a bit of a cliche to say that one is never too old for metal, mostly because bands like Saxon continue to validate it. One could even argue that the title "Sacrifice" is a tad inappropriate, given that little would be lost in giving this baby a spin.

I guess it is not really a surprise that Saxon already got a new album thrown out into the streets, as they more or less have been keeping this 2-year span between each album for quite some time. Is that a good thing that we keep having all this brand new material or is it a bad thing…?

The album contains the usual ingredients that you would find on a Saxon album. Good production, solid band performance and the usual stuff you would expect from Saxon. Biff’s voice is still going strong, and I do not doubt he will be able to perform on a high level for a couple of years in the future, even though he has reached his sixties. Through the first two or three listens the album doesn’t really offer much but then it grows on you a bit, and that is pretty much how it goes with a lot of Saxon albums post their “glory days”. I was, however, from the looks of the cover hoping that the Aztec theme would shine through and bring some diversity into their discography. Since that is not the case you can always hope for some new smashers, which there of course is. But besides that, it is actually not that different from previous albums. Some fillers and decent songs and then some tracks you can add to your Saxon play list. Other than that, there is really not that much to blow up about this album, as it has been done countless times before by the band.

“Sacrifice” also offers us five re-recorded songs. Just Let Me Rock, Forever Free, Crusader, Frozen Rainbow, and Requiem (We Will Remember). The orchestral version of Crusader is decent. Sometimes the orchestra is a little misplaced and doesn’t quite fit the rest of the music. But it isn’t really as orchestral oriented as it could be, but without hesitation I would always listen to the original. Adding these re-recordings definitely was a wise choice, at least for my taste. I love some re-recordings, of course the band already released “Heavy Metal Thunder” in 2002, which only featured such tracks. The two standards Just Let Me Rock and Forever Free are funny enough fresh takes as well. Though Just Let Me Rock never really got through to me and is rather forgettable, and that goes for both the original and new version. Forever Free however is a really solid take on an already good song and is easily a re-recording I would play some more in the future!

Usually, I don’t really want to listen to acoustic versions of tracks, I can’t really come with any explanation. I just can’t see the use in some way… But the first version Requiem (We Will Remember) which have been cut down in length which suits the song a lot, is actually pretty good. As the song already was a kind of a ballad but maybe a little to long in duration, this acoustic version serves the track a lot of justice and it definitely something I will listen to again! Now, Frozen Rainbow is one of my favourite songs by the band so I really feared for this song’s awesomeness in “acoustic mode”. But… They actually didn’t ruin it. As the previous song, it has been cut down in length, not that much though. It is nice and calm, and originally it also had a ballad feel to it. I really applaud Saxon on those acoustic songs. It really shows the skills of the band that they can “transform” some old tracks like that and not making them doll. It’s like they have gotten and overdose of breath mints. Totally fucking fresh. Now I got two versions of one of my favourite Saxon songs. Perfect! I usually don’t do track by track reviews but to me it just seemed like something good to do, for old and even new fans so you know about the quality of these new recordings. If you of course care about re-recordings, and if not… Oh well!

From the core of the track-list, which means the ten new tracks, I would highlight Sacrifice, Made in Belfast, and Guardians of the Tomb. It is not much but they are the only tracks that really stand out, but if you want to make the three track span a little bigger then get the versions with the re-recordings of Requiem (We Will Remember), Frozen Rainbow, and Forever Free.

Instead of dishing up with these albums within a 2-year span I think they should take some more time off to write better material. A real fucking smasher, which the band really need, to get some more success which they deserve. Personally, I prefer Saxon over Iron Maiden, but that is just me. Saxon have so many hidden gems, you just got to find them. But I really think they deserve a real breakthrough, it almost makes me sad that they are so under appreciated. So when reflecting, “Sacrifice” doesn’t really add anything new to the table that the band haven’t already released. However, it was a nice surprise with the acoustic versions of some old songs, maybe they should incorporate acoustic songs more on their albums, because they really got a nose for it! It is not a bad album but not a great one either, just a decent performance, though some of the re-recordings really pulled this album up in rating.

Written for Reigning Damnation.