Rage (German band w/ Peavy Wagner) - s/d

checking out debut (as Rage) - Reign of Fear now

"Scared to Death" - definitely less playful than later Rage, Peavy's falsetto in the stratosphere but he brings the throaty midrange too. feels like Savatage if they had a cleaner sounding vocalist, played slightly faster and sung about Satan. so I guess it doesn't sound like Savatage. fuck me.

"Deceiver" - this thing fuckin' cooks. unlike the first track, there's a hint of the melodic ear-wormy goodness of later Rage, and a hella fun instrumental break before things pick back up again.

can't hear Peavy's bass as well, which is sad because I love how he thumps that thing

"Reign of Fear" - my, they're really trying hard to cast an ominous shadow. this one's more mid-tempo, but feels more horn-throwing evil than later Rage would be. still catchy though, though they'd get better when they eased into their more goofy form of speed metal. for comparison, look at the lyrics to "Supersonic Hydromatic".

really do not like the production on this album, but hey, as far as debuts go...

"Hand of Glory" - this sounds a weeee bit closer to what they'd get into later. and for once an early 80s metal album where the vocalist wasn't drenched in reverb!

nobody will show up to this thread but I'm listening to Perfect Man right now.

wasteLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND

End of All Days is the bee's knees. "Higher Than the Sky" especially.

Really fun band, I hadn't heard of them before 2010, and once I did I was flabbergasted that they're such a nonentity in North America.

I only learned of them through the owner of the website (Satan Stole My Teddybear) that I wrote for in the 2000s, he was big into them, but at the time it was difficult to impossible to acquire their albums in the US unless you used Ebay (which I did). then there was a re-release or something which is how I acquired Perfect Man.

it's hard to have a convo about them IRL cos everyone always assumes you're about to talk about RATM.