The band originally had the name Teaser, and eventually in 1979 morphed into Sweet Savage, forming in Belfast in Northern Ireland. That original four piece was made up of Ray Haller on bass and vocals, Dave Bates on drums, and Trev Fleming and Vivian Campbell on guitars. Yep, THAT Vivian Campbell, who was 15 years old when he joined Teaser and was 17 when they became Sweet Savage. The band did as all bands have done for time immemorial – they gigged, they dreamed. By 1981, they had reached a stage of renown that they were invited to appear on the BBC Friday Rock Show, where they played four songs - “Eye of the Storm”, “Into the Night”, “Queen’s Vengeance” and “Killing Time”. The band then self-released this on cassette under the innocuous name of “Demo ‘81”. At this time the band was picked up by Park Records, and released their first single “Take No Prisoners” with “Killing Time” as the B-side, and which was limited to 1000 copies. On the back of this, the band had supported Thin Lizzy on their tour to back their “Renegade” album, along with also supporting bands such as Ozzy Osbourne, Wishbone Ash and Motorhead.
While these had begun to push the band in the right direction, it wasn’t enough to save them from losing their brightest light. Ronnie James Dio had just left Black Sabbath and was looking to start his own band. Having asked former Rainbow bandmate Jimmy Bain if he knew of any good young guitar players, Bain took Dio to watch a Sweet Savage show to check out their young prodigy Vivian Campbell – the result being, Campbell soon left for the greener pastures of the new band Dio, and his future was well underway.
The band went on hiatus for 12 months before coming back together with new guitarist Ian Wilson and a new lead singer in Robert Casserly. This line up recorded two singles - “Straight Through the Heart” (a song composed by Vivian Campbell, and who had taken the riff from this song to utilise in the Dio band for the song “Caught in the Middle”) and “The Raid”, both of which failed to gain any traction, and the group disbanded, going the way of so many of their NWoBHM colleagues.
Resurrection came via the form of the fanboying of the members of another band that was starting to do okay for themselves. In 1990, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich and Sounds journalist Geoff Barton put together their double album compilation “New Wave of British Heavy Netal - ‘79 Revisited” - an album you can hear reviewed on episode 175 of this podcast – and they used the Sweet Savage song “Eye of the Storm” on that album, giving it new life and exposing it to a new generation of fans. Metallica then went one further, performing their own version of the song “Killing Time” for the B side of their 1991 single release of “The Unforgiven”, which became one of their biggest selling albums, and thus exposing millions of their fans to the band’s music. On the back of this, there was a renewed interest in the band.
After another couple of years, the stage was set for a return. Looking to follow up on this free publicity the band had received from the Metallica machine, Ray Haller put the band back together. He went back to his former dual role of bass guitarist and lead vocalist, and brought back Trev Fleming and Dave Bates on guitar and drums respectively. Unfortunately, Ian Wilson was unavailable at that time, and so Haller brought in another teenage guitarist by the name of Simon McBride. If the name is familiar to you, it is probably because he is now the current guitarist for Deep Purple.
With the group back together, all that remained was to head into the studio and record their debut studio album, almost 20 years after the original formation of the band had come together. And in many ways, it was apt that the name chosen for the album (apart from it being the best-known track by the band due to the whole Metallica shenanigans) was “Killing Time”.
Coming into this album, it must have been a difficult situation, given that this album was 15 years in the making. All of those songs that the band had written, performed and in some instances recorded in the past, the songs that the fans from those days knew and loved – could you ignore them, and just write a whole new album? To do that always seemed like a stretch. If the band did not acknowledge its past, given that they had basically been resurrected due to one song from its past being played by the biggest metal band on the planet, then it risked this being a waste of time. But should ALL of the band’s material from the past get a second chance, or just pieces? And how much new material should the band put out there? On top of that, it was now 1996, not 1981. Music was in a different stratosphere now than it had been then. Nostalgia seemed as though it had to be prevalent to attract the fans, but could they attract new fans by utilising a sound from the past compared to what was currently then in vogue? All of it was going to be a juggling act. So what we get here is material that consisted of songs from the very beginning of the band, re-recorded in the studio in the modern day, as well as songs from their time that were reworked or completed renovated in the recording process. And you can easily split the songs on this album into three categories.
Firstly, there are the songs that have been written by the returning lineup for this release. "Welcome to the Real World", "Thunder", "Parody of Wisdom" and "Why" are those four songs. Now, whether it is the fact that they were written at this time for this album, or they had been previous ideas that were brought in and reimagined for this album, there is a noticeable difference between these songs and the others on the album. “Welcome to the Real World” opens with a great riff, and jumps straight into its groove from the outset. Haller goes hard in his lyrics, focusing on many of the world events that had come in the years prior to the album being recorded. “Lunatics with automatic guns, contaminated beef, muggers on the street, The Berlin Wall was the first thing to fall, Civil war in Bosnia, bye bye Yugoslavia” followed by “L.A riots shocked a nation, Oil pollution, bloody revolutions, the Vietnam War was the first one we saw, Government corruption, nuclear destruction”. “What’s going to happen to you and me, we need to know, we want the truth”. Lyrically it is really strong in its output, and the solo section offers up a nice piece as well. It is contemporary musically while still retaining the band’s 80’s roots. “Thunder” follows this on the album, slows the tempo down, and discusses record companies and their big sell and what you get out of it after allis said and done. Haller is obviously espousing how he felt the band was treated back in the day when they were trying to make a go of it. “Seen it all let down long ago, never knew where you’re coming from or what you gonna do, Came across as Jesus Christ, shook our hand, paid the price, we got crucified”. Musically it needs more to get across the obvious anger and aggression portrayed in the lyrics, but its message is clear. “Parody of Wisdom” is again rooted in the tempo of the way alternative metal was headed in the mid-1990's, that slow-mid tempo that tries to project heaviness but often just offers less. Haller’s vocals rise in a way that allows them to be the main focus of the song over the rather drab riff and rhythm being played underneath. It picks up halfway through with the guitar solo section that brings about a dose of energy, but then immediately (almost like hitting a brick wall) drops back to that death slow rhythm. Haller offers a bit of bass intervention in the back half, but otherwise the song loses its focus. The final of the four new tracks, “Why”, has Haller going deep lyrically again with a more upbeat feel to the track musically. Each of these four songs offer the band in the then modern day, creating songs that settle into the era that they are in. It gives the album the grounding it probably needed with the other material that is contained within.
The second grouping are songs that were originally written in the period following Campbell's departure from the band, and Ian Wilson's arrival as his replacement. "D.U.D." and "Reach Out" are those two songs, and both have a faster pace than those first four songs mentioned, with a catchy snatch of lyrics and a punchy riff. “D.U.D” is a sign of the times lyrically, the song about the girl and her antics downtown, and likewise in “Reach Out” where the protagonist claims that he needs the girl to allow him to be whole. Both song's lyrics are, at best, ambiguous as to what they want to say, offering up lines that could be interpreted in different ways depending on the situation. They are most definitely not anywhere near as serious or pointed as are the ones on the previous songs mentioned. There is no message here, just the carefree mid-1980's lyrics to sing along to while enjoying the music.
Thirdly, there are the songs that came from the original line-up, and were the ones that caught the imagination of punters when they first came on the scene. Those songs, "Killing Time", "Vengeance", "Eye of the Storm", "Prospector of Greed", "The Raid" and "Ground Zero", are the ground breakers here, the eye catching, ear-pricking, fast paced, head banging, guitar driven songs that are the source of Sweet Savage's power. The difference between the songs in this section and the first section is like chalk and cheese. Those first songs are fine, but of a slower pace generally, written with another guitarist in a different era, and that is truly noticeable. The speed of the songs, and the flying fingers in the solos, are the dead giveaways in the songs from this third section. While the original versions with Vivian playing are superior simply because of his guitar playing (compare the original versions of "Eye of the Storm" and "Killing Time" with the two on this album, and you will know exactly what I mean), these versions still shine through in an era where song writing is still an art form many cannot reproduce. Each of these songs SOUNDS more energetic than the other half of the album. Ray Haller’s vocals are up and vibrant and sound like he’s having fun, which is energised by the guitar riffs and especially the solos section. Simon McBride shines here as Vivian’s substitute, giving his solos the treatment they deserve, sticking mostly to what he originally laid down.
“Killing Time” gets an upgrade, the sound of this version combining the band’s original version along with Metallica’s lovingly crafted cover version, and that is what Sweet Savage concoct here, a nice combining of the two to give it a new life here to open up the new album. “Vengeance” has also received a heavier upgrade, one that almost redesigns the original track into a modern day setting. “Eye of the Storm” too has been tuned down from the original track, doesn’t have quite the same speed and urgency of the original and sounds like it has been adapted to appeal to the 1996 marketplace. It is still a great version, but I prefer the original as I mentioned before. “Prospector of Greed” showcases McBride as the young gunslinger he was at that time, channelling the young Vivian Campbell and firing on all cylinders on this track, another example of the youthful exuberance of the band shining through on these old songs rather than what has come in a different style on the newly written tracks. “The Raid” is another where the original was so energetic, and that picks up the awesomeness of this release because the band sticks to the plan and reproduces its best features again here. And “Ground Zero” in particular is a brilliant way to complete the album, it blasts out of the speakers, and charges along with all the joy that the band showcases in their early days.
Back in the 1980's I had a boy-crush on Vivian Campbell. I loved his guitaring and song writing in Dio and thought he produced the greatest riffs and solos of anyone I knew - and I was then devastated when he left that group before I could see them live in 1986. That was terrible. I followed his other bands leading up to his final landing place in Def Leppard. Through this research and following him in his obscure one-off bands through the late 1980’s I also discovered that he had been in a band called Sweet Savage before he joined Dio, and then tried to find any material I could of theirs. I was basically unsuccessful because they had released almost nothing as an official release. The only song I could eventually find was one called "Eye of the Storm", which was released on the afore-mentioned Lars Ulrich-inspired compilation release, and of course Metallica’s cover of “Killing Time”. Some years later, as I went on my quest in the file sharing years of tracking down every artist and album I could from those long-lost New Wave of British Heavy Metal years, I came across those few early Sweet Savage recordings by their original line-up. The “Demo ‘81”, the “Take No Prisoners” single, and the other singles of that period. They are all brilliant in their own right, and it occurred to me then that despite Vivian's defection to Dio, you can't help but wonder how Sweet Savage did not manage to break through into mainstream metal ranks as well. And during that search, I also came across this album, one of which existence I had been completely unaware.
So I got this album, and as you would have guessed if you have listened to me talk about music for any length of time, I was probably a little over amped up for it. At the time I remember hoping that the versions of the songs I knew here would be EXACTLY like they were on those old versions, and of course they weren’t. And I wanted the songs that I didn’t know to be EXACTLY like they were written and played in 1981, and of course they weren’t. BUT – that didn’t stop me enjoying the album. The mix of new and old was done really well, it gave the album the impetus along the way, the kick in the pants when it needs it. And it is an album that I still would sporadically go back to without any qualms.
Listening to it again this past week has been illuminating. As with all of the episodes of this podcast, I prefer to have a hard copy of the album I’m reviewing rather than a digital copy, and knowing this episode was coming up I started looking at the net to see if there was any hope that I could find this anywhere on vinyl, because you NEED to listen to this on vinyl, it is the kind of album that needs that sense of occasion. And I found a recent re-release that I was willing to pay the price of, and that is what I have been listening to this week. And it has been glorious. It is true that this isn’t going to be an album that ranks in the top echelon of the greats of any genre. But it is a better than average album that succeeds in its purpose. It rights the wrong, that Sweet Savage had not released a full album, and that the songs of their youth had never received that posterity that they deserved. And that’s what this album solves. It gives them all the place they deserve, and the chance to be heard. In the long run, that is this album’s greatest achievement.
It is a shame this album didn't eventuate in 1982 instead of 1996. Who knows what could have happened if it had. Perhaps Sweet Savage would still have gone the way of other bands of its day, getting that initial release out but still fading into obscurity. But perhaps, just perhaps, they may not. Perhaps their story would be a different one. And perhaps, in a parallel universe out there, that is exactly what happened. Sometimes, when listening to this album, I like to consider what that possibility might have brought about.
No comments:
Post a Comment