Saxon - Battering Ram

Published October 15 2015

*=Staff's pick	Battering Ram* The Devil's Footprint* Queen Of Hearts Destroyer Hard And Fast Eye Of The Storm Stand Your Ground* Top Of The World To The End Kingdom Of The Cross* Three Sheets To The Wind (The Drinking Song)

Genre	Heavy Metal	Biff Byford	Vocals
Tracks	11	Paul Quinn	Guitar
Running time	50 Min.	Doug Scarratt	Guitar
Label	UDR Music	Nibbs Carter	Bass
Release	October 16, 2015	Nigel Glockler	Drums
Country	England	-	Keyboard
Producer	Andy Sneap
Similar artists	---

The British long-running veterans proceed their prosperous career with yet another album of real heavy metal. Their style of music is indeed recognizable and even though this record contains a fairly good diversity and that they have made a few small changes in the performance, there is in fact only one truly surprising feature present, namely Kingdom Of The Cross. It's a grave and profound song featuring Hell's David Bower, who, with much empathy and compassion, through the verses, is telling us this sad story. Definitely not something I thought would end up on a Saxon record.

I think that Biff Byford's voice basically keeps going strong and it hasn't started to really deteriorate yet. Given that he is now almost 65 years old, his effort is even more impressive, since most singers at his age have since long already passed their better days. The riffing through the songs is quite similar to what's been done before, though very active and at a high level, and the same goes same for the melodic parts, who hit nicely when occurring every now and then. It would be an exaggeration to assert that Quinn and Scarratt bring forward any really groundbreaking stuff, yet they manage to solidify their position as one of the coolest riffing machines of metal.

Saxon does as always come out with a genuine and good album. All songs aren't state of the art of course and this release isn't a record that I will remember as an absolute highlight in the band's voluminous catalogue, but considering that this unit's discography is generally magnificent, Battering Ram faces the challenge of standing up to the past work really well and it also shows that some of the old dinosaurs still are able to come out with valid material in today's competition. Far from all the bands of Saxon's era and age are this frequent with releasing albums, so it's pretty admirable to see this band properly keep their credibility on a high note.

Performance	Originality	Production	Vocals	Songwriting
8	5	7	7	7

Summary
7 chalices of 10 - Tobbe