Oliver Dawson Saxon - Blood And Thunder Live

Published July 30 2014

*=Staff's pick	Schwermetal Fur Immer Past The Point* Everybody Up Crusader Whippin Boy Redline Motorcycle Man Denim And Leather Dallas 1PM Fetzen Fliegen V Princess Of The Night Rock 'N' Roll Gipsy* Strong Arm Of The Law And The Bands Played On

Genre	Heavy Metal	Brian Shaughnessy	Vocals
Tracks	14	Graham Oliver	Guitar
Running time	61 Min.	Haydn Conway	Guitar
Label	Angel Air	Steve Dawson	Bass
Release	04 August 2014	Paul Oliver	Drums
Country	England	-	Keyboard
Producer	Paul O'Neill
Similar artists	---

A live album by guitar player Graham Oliver's and bass player Steve Dawson's version of Saxon and I believe that it would be impossible to not compare this effort to what Biff Byford's and Paul Quinn's Saxon achieves. One thing is dead certain though. This definitely doesn't come out as a total studio product, which live albums tend to do quite often. Sonically it wobbles just a little back and forth and the individual instruments sounds somewhat authentic.

Lead vocalist Brian Shaughnessy isn't able to come out as powerful as Biff Byford and it sort of feels like a band just having a fun time on the stage. There are specific moments where the first mentioned singer imitates the latter pretty well nonetheless. I'm not always fond of getting into details too much when it comes to live performances, because I think that energy is the main factor on those occasions, but if you're looking for perfection and quality, perhaps this is not the album you would appreciate the most.

We only get two real songs from the time after Oliver's and Dawson's respectively departures from Saxon, which I find a little curious, since the record Victim You, which these men delivered under the name of Son Of A Bitch in 1996, contains several songs, good enough to be included in a live set. The audience however probably only recognizes the old classic songs, so I guess the band's choice of songs on its performances is understandable. A decent outcome at the end of the day, but perhaps mostly because the original songs are so great.