Album review : IRON SAVIOR – Riding On Fire – The Noise Years 1997-2004, 6 CD Boxset

Cherry Red [Release date 28.07.23]

“A constant and independent force within the Power Metal universe”. No prizes for attributing this quote to Iron Savior mainman, Piet Sielck. It could easily have come from his Iron Savior buddy, Kai (Gamma Ray) Hansen. In fact you could argue that Sielck and Hansen kick started the entire Power Metal genre in Europe when the former Helloween bandmates formed Iron Savior in 1996.

This handsome boxset comprises the band’s 5 albums from the Noise label years, plus 1 extended EP, with 10 bonus tracks sprinkled across the collection.

Iron Savior : 1997
Interlude EP : 1998
Unification : 1999
Dark Assault : 2001
Condition Red : 2002
Battering Ram : 2004

Anyone remotely interested in the genre will know that the band’s albums are thematically linked by an elaborate Sci-Fi concept. An almost at random selection of track titles from the debut album … ‘Watcher In The Sky’, ‘Brave New World’, ‘Atlantis Falling’ are a clue.

Although many of the songs from these albums have been remodelled and pumped up for more recent reboots, we can still clearly hear the “Teutonic Fury” in these original recordings.

In perhaps a rawer form, that sound, one that characterises the power of the genre and its cultural connections, was undoubtedly a key component in the band’s original heavy metal architecture.

On the earlier Noise albums, the band makes no bones about the Iron Maiden/ Judas Priest influence. ‘The Rage’ (originally Japanese bonus track on the debut), is one of four Judas Priest covers here. The others, ‘Electric Eye’, ‘Living After Midnight’ and ‘Delivering the Goods’ are also utilised as bonus tracks, having originally appeared on the Japanese versions of the various album releases.

Jump then to ‘Starborn’ and ‘Deadly Sleep’, from Unification. Here, Sielck and Hansen stamp their own classy songwriting ID on the metal, and arguably, their sole co-write on Dark Assault, ‘Solar Wings’ is the band’s prime cut, a blazing, streamlined slice of heavy metal, ignited by the duo’s fiery, eminently melodic axework.

Hansen then left to form his own band, Gamma Ray.

The extended EP, Interlude, includes 5 raucous live track from the band’s first appearance at Wacken, plus 3 of the boxset’s ten bonus tracks.

On release, Condition Red and Battering Ram were vilified in some sections of the music media as being past their sell by date. As is often the case, those writing such critiques were ignorant of the genre’s growing sophistication, and indeed its ability (in Iron Savior’s case) to create sonic images that reflect the lyrical narrative.

12 albums in – Sielck’s own words, “we must be doing something right”.

The boxset includes extended liner notes: The story of the Voyage of the spaceship, Iron Savior and an extensive biography of the band are included. All that and music too . . . a real value for money package. ****

Review by Brian McGowan

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