Audio CD review:
Savatage - Gutter Ballet (Germany)

Savatage - Gutter Ballet (Germany)

Band: Savatage Title: Gutter Ballet (Germany) Rating: Release Date: 06 January, 2004 Media: Audio CD Tracks: 1: Gutter Ballet 2: Temptation Revalation 3: When The Crowds Are Gone 4: Silk And Steel 5: She's In Love 6: Hounds 7: The Unholy 8: Mentally Yours 9: Summer's Rain 10: Thorazine Shuffle 11: Of Rage And War

Customer Reviews Savatage Fan. Hall of the Mountain King runs a very, very close second actually just as good. First of all, to all Savatage fans, if you don't like Gutter Ballet then I would Question whether or not you are really a Savatage Fan? This Cd is there absolute Best Cd, second to none. Criss Oliva's Classic, Medevil, Spiney, Steel Guitar Style is at it's Best on this CD as well as Hall of the Mountain King. Both albums are a must have for Metal fans. Jon Oliva's Vocals are also at their Best espescially on the Title track, Gutter Ballet. Small Guitar pieces such as Silk and Steel just show how Criss Oliva's Playing was just Growing more and more Complex, Classical Metal is one way to describe it. This was the second to the last CD with the original Band Line up and would be the second to the last that the Oliva Brothers would record together before the Great Loss of Criss Oliva. This CD is some of the Oliva Brother's Greatest work. True Metal. Through and Through. I love this album. A must have for my collection. Starting off with Of Rage and War, then the title track, it goes on to rock you like all the good 80's metal bands could. Being a huge Savatage fan, this ablum is to me one of the best. I've had this album for several years, first as a cassette (remember those) and now on cd. The piano, guitars, and screaming vocals make this one to just crank up. When The Crowds Are Gone is a track that makes it way onto several Savatege albums, including Streets, A Rock Opera. . From the gutter to the stage indeed After three face melting metal albums and then the somewhat `cash hungry' Fight For The Rock album the band had scurried back into full bore metal with Hall of the Mountain King. Considered to have marked somewhat of a watershed in the career of Savatage this is certainly an album that presaged a change of course for the band. After which they put out this album which seems in hindsight to be partly more of the same metal made with brains and conviction and a turn into the left field of later more ornate metal shadings. To my mind this album is a record of two halves and neither really satisfies. Sirens and Power of the Night were scorchers, even if you didn't like their particular brand of metal you had to admit that the `tage rocked a good fight. Here the master blasters are less convincing, tunes such as Of Rage and War admittedly being full of metal aggression and visceral Jon Oliva vocals but just feeling a touch. . . . Forced? Other stompers such as Mentally Yours and Thorazine Shuffle do explore rich and intelligent fields of concern but just don't quite have that X factor that would drive them to such uncouth realms as utter bollocks kicking. Where some of the undoubted talent on show here really manifests itself is the use of more acoustic stuctures, opening up the bands possibilites and producing the rather wonderful title track where the new more orchestral melodrama is married to the old rusty riff monster persona of the band to most telling effect. Next best in terms of melodramatic success would have to be When the Crowds Are Gone, the live version of which off the Ghost in the Ruins live album always sticks in my mind as containing a particularly bleeding and scraping vocal effort from Oliva. No doubt some will censure me for granting this three stars, neither panning it as a rebuttal of the bands awesome metal of earlier years nor really enjoying the new directions as they stand here in their formative incarnation. But the fact is that I can appreciate the talent on display and enjoy the beauty of When the Crowds Are Gone, the majesty of the title track and the visceral delivery within Of Rage And War but can't really get into this ablum in the same way I found joy in their first couple of efforts or the fully realised intellectual metal of later master works like Dead Winter Dead. . . You can see a complete list of all Savatage discography, or go back to the Savatage tabs