Savatage - Return To Wacken

Published June 27 2015

*=Staff's pick	Hall Of The Mountain King* Gutter Ballet Believe Chance Edge Of Thorns* The Wake Of Magellan* Dead Winter Dead The Hourglass* Tonight He Grins Again Prelude To Madness When The Crowds Are Gone

Genre	Progressive Metal	See review	Vocals
Tracks	11	-	Guitar
Running time	63 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	earMusic	-	Bass
Release	June 19, 2015	-	Drums
Country	USA	-	Keyboard
Producer	Paul O'Neill
Similar artists	---

Lineup: Jon Oliva (Vocals and keyboards. Additional guitars, bass and drums), Zak Stevens (Vocals), Chris Oliva, Chris Caffery and Al Pitrelli (Guitars), Alex Skolnick (Additional guitars), Steve "Doc" Wacholz and Jeff Plate (Drums) and Johnny Lee Middleton (Bass).

To celebrate Savatage's return to Wacken Open Air in 2015, an anthology is released, which supposedly is based on the band's setlists on its 2 previous performances on the North German festival in 1998 and 2002 respectively. At first view at the front cover, I thought that this was some kind of live recording since the title includes the name Wacken and I know for sure that quite a few people already have made the same mistake as I did.

In this day and age, is a best of album with enhanced studio versions of the band's songs really something that can make your money's worth? I know that a few fans definitely will be disappointed when they put this release into their audio system, if they haven't taken the time to really check out what's included on this disc before purchase. Naturally people will associate the album title with something recorded live and I think the label and the band should have used other ways to boost their coming Wacken performance.

If I have a look on what's actually on the disc, it's kind of obvious that many of the band's greatest and most celebrated tracks are present, but at the same time I always felt that Savatage was unable to really keep the momentum through longer periods of music. I mean, it's awesome at best, yet it's kind of bland and strained occasionally and also a little dull from time to time. Normally I would have rated a release of this quality higher though, but c'mon, an album comprised of studio versions with a title like this one. In my book, it's definitely not okay.

Performance	Originality	Production	Vocals	Songwriting
7	8	7	7	6

Summary
4 chalices of 10 - Tobbe