Running Wild - Rogues En Vogue

*=Staff's pick	Draw The Line Angel Of Mercy* Skeleton Dance Skull & Bones Born Bad, Dying Worse Black Gold* Soul Vampires Rogues En Vogue* Winged & Feathered Dead Man's Road The War

Genre	Heavy Metal	Rock'n'Rolf	Vocals
Tracks	11	Rock'n'Rolf	Guitar
Runningtime	57 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	GUN	Peter Pichl	Bass
Release	21 Feb. 2005	Matthias Liebetruth	Drums
Country	Germany	-	Keyboards
Similar artists	---

Legend Rolf Kasparek is back with another album, following up The Brotherhood (2002). The past two albums have resulted in some bad critic, even from the most die hard fans, and I don't exclude myself from that group of people. The question this time is if he has managed to rise from the swamp of stagnation, bad sound and the lack of really good ideas. Unfortunatly this is not the grandios comeback the fans have been waiting for. While it is slightly, but just slightly, better then Brotherhood, it is close to being less good then Victory, and definitly way less good then The Rivalry.

This album does not contain one single real hit, but instead many average tunes. It mainly runs in midtempo, and it never takes off at any point. The trademark for Running Wild - the fast, rolling and powerful riffs that create this great mood you are just caught up in, and the engaging lyrics - are not very apperant nowadays. The twists and turns and heavy speedballs are no longer there, but instead more and more groovy rockers, which are nice in moderate doses, but not when a whole album is based on them.

He does not really nail the refrains this time, actually far from it. Overall the verses and refrains give a very flat impression (Winged & Feathered, Dead Man's Road, The War). Only Angel Of Mercy and Rogues En Vogue are the exceptions to this, as they are really good songs with feelings of Black Hand Inn (Angel Of Mercy) and something that could have been on Blazon Stone (Rogues En Vogue). That almost leaves me with a tear in the eye, since I can hear that he actually is on the right track with this, but he has just not managed to forge this into something that stretches beyond average.

Other songs that actually contain some decent riffs and leads, and manage to initially create something promising, are all abruptly taken down to earth again when the refrain kicks in (Draw The Line, Skeleton Dance, Soul Vampires), and they never really recover again. Not to talk about the refrain in The War, which has to be considered the biggest anticlimax on the album. Rock'n'Rolf makes a 10+ minute epos, and the chorus is like a fart in the universe. It is supposed to be majestic and flamboyant, damn it (think Treasure Island, Genesis, War & Peace, The Ghost).

Even though the song is filled with some great typical Running Wild melodic lines and riffs (almost too much perhaps, since it at times feels like a parody on themelves), The War represent and symbolize the whole album pretty good, I think: an anticlimax. If it wasn't for the whole song Angel Of Mercy, the last two minutes of Skull & Bones, some riffs in Rogues En Vogue, Skeleton Dance, Black Gold and The War, this album would have been dangerously close to not pass.

The production is once again clear and better then in a few years, but it's still too dry and thin for my taste. Rolf's vocals are not very good now either, since he have apperant problems taking higher notes, and he sounds more times than not a bit nasal, and it sounds like he has to fight to keep the voice together from time to time. I am forever grateful for what Running Wild have given me during all these years, and I will stay a diehard fan until the day I die, but this album does not do much for me.

You can do better than this, Captain Rolf. I hope. Otherwise your days of glory are soon over.

See also review of: Rapid Foray , Resilient , Shadowmaker , The Brotherhood , Live

Production	Vocals	Compositions
7	5	5

Summary
5 chalices of 10 - Tommy