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Nod to the Old School Armored Saint |
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They came, they conquered… and they left. Back in the early nineties, arguably at their peak coming off of their successful "Symbol of Salvation" breakthrough, the 'Saint themselves were conquered by an inward dissolution that began with John Bush joining the ranks of Anthrax to bring white noise to the world, then subsequently Joey Vera going off to do a bust of a solo record and the remaining members would later go on to their own respective journeys. A few years back the band reunited for the mildly received "Revelations" and have been an ongoing project of sorts since. There's always been a place in time for the likes of Armored Saint, steeped in the Metal tradition and here, recall the early years; the not so glorious past that maybe more than any other time leading up to their revival, holds some degree of meaning. Integrous to the last, "Nod to the Old School" is a two-disc collection spanning the history of Armored Saint, past to present, featuring a briefing of new material-"Real Swagger," a chugging opener that sees they haven't lost their edge or desire for power, "Unstable," a mid-tempo piece that's a little lost for energy, and "Day of the Eagle," melodic and well fed into the mixing board… sandwiched between, revamped versions of past favorites-"March of the Saint (2001)," "Tainted Past" in acoustic form before heading off to the front of the stage from last year's "Revelations" tour for a handful of prime cuts-"After Me, The Flood," "Creepy Feelings," and "Lesson Well Learned" before capping off with a trio of demos that preceded their monstrous "March of the Saint" 1984 debut. So while disc one presents the band in a somewhat different light, their accessibility spotlighted to a great extent, disc two reveals the rarer side of life in the Saint's camp featuring further demo tracks, and hidden rarities, though some may remember their contribution to the Decline of Western Civilization Part II Soundtrack "You Can Run But You Can't Hide," a storming groove-racked tune that fell through the album cracks somewhere during the late '80s. How the same fate befell "Pirates," appearing a few songs later, is anybody's guess. Pulled from an '89 4-track demo, this one has it all-power, speed, blazing chorus, one of those that jumps right out and plunders what's left of your hearing as you reach for the volume control for the seventh or eighth time by now. "Medieval Nightmares" from the same demo concludes disc two-but look out, this is an enhanced CD so expect a couple of welcome surprises before it's all over-and while the Vera/Prichard guitar tandem is in its usual fine form-note Vera plays bass here so we'll give the nod to Jeff Duncan who came aboard later, this one's got a roof-raising chorus and could've fit well on anything they'd done up to that point-Armored Saint, a model of consistency ,were all about Heavy Metal, cranking the amps, and taking on the world… some twenty years after they first started, tainted, stricken, bruised and battered, the 'Saint still marches on… Released by Metal
Blade Records GmbH, P.O. Box 1332, 73054 Eislingen, Germany. Review by Vinnie Apicella
[va85@columbia.edu]
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