IRON SAVIOR — Iron Savior (review)

Album · 1997 · Power Metal

3/5 · 2015-11-16
martindavey87

Iron Savior are a power metal "supergroup" that consists of Gamma Ray's Kai Hansen, Blind Guardian's Thomas Stauch, and record producer Piet Sielck (who?). To sum this up in one sentence, this, their self-titled debut, is a concept album focusing on a self-aware space ship...

...

Wait...

Hold on...

...

Okay, you're still reading. It'll take more than self-aware space ships to detract you. Good job. So let's keep straight faces and focus on what matters most... the music.

Taking what sounds like a terrible idea for a rock opera and turning it into a half-decent metal record is not an achievement to be scoffed at, and what this band may lack in finesse and quality, they certainly make up for in energy and enthusiasm. If you can look past the endless Judas Priest comparisons and the stench of rotten cheese, some of the tracks on 'Iron Savior' are pretty good, of course, some of them are also pretty terrible.

'Iron Savior', 'Assailant', 'Protect the Law' and 'For the World' are all power metal classics (a paradox?), whereas some of the songs, such as 'Riding on Fire', 'Children of the Wasteland' and 'Break It Up' are absolute stinkers. And Sielck's vocals don't help much. Sometimes they fit the music perfectly, sometimes they sound a bit over-the-top and ridiculous. It's hard to decide if I like them or not.

There's some fine riffing going on, as would be expected by power metal godfather Kai Hansen, and the cohesiveness between himself and Sielck is akin to that of similar bands in the genre, such as Gamma Ray (coincidence?), Helloween or Judas Priest. It's just a shame that memorable riffs aren't too common, but hey, the good ones are fantastic, so I'll give 'em that.

With any doubts in mind, you just have to remind yourself that it's a power metal album about a self-aware space ship. A bloody self-aware space ship!!! The cheesy lyrics and repetitive guitar riffs suddenly don't seem that bad now, do they?

more than 2 years ago
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martindavey87 wrote:

more than 2 years ago

I knew who he was as a producer from when I first discovered Iron Savior back in 2005 or 2006, and just general researching who the members are. The "who?" comment is a more tongue-in-cheek approach to basically saying that in terms of who else was in the band at the time... do I really need to explain it?

666sharon666 wrote:

more than 2 years ago

In response to the 'Piet Sielck (who?)' remark:

I've got the impression from your reviews that you don't listen to much power metal. You might have known who he was otherwise, as he's worked on releases from Blind Guardian, Grave Digger and Gamma Ray, all of whom are very much German power metal royalty.

Less notably Piet was also in the band Gentry with Kai Hansen. Gentry, of course, would eventually become Helloween.

These days though he's probably best known for this band.

Vim Fuego wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Self-aware spaceships fucking rock! You need to read the Night's Dawn trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton. It's got self-aware spaceships in it, and does it without being cheesy. Nice review too. Might check this out.