Savage Messiah - 'Insurrection Rising'

The NEW New Wave Of British Heavy Metal? Perhaps.

First things first: any band who originally took their name from one of Black Sabbath’s most underrated albums, the Tony Martin-sung masterwork Headless Cross, is ok in my book. Secondly, it’s refreshing to hear a band such as Savage Messiah—unoriginal second moniker notwithstanding—take the time to carefully craft some REAL sounding heavy metal here on their Insurrection Rising debut, as opposed to crass retro-thrash currently traversing the (air) waves.

Forget Bullet For My Valentine, it’s bands like Savage Messiah who we truly need leading the charge for the UK’s traditional metal scene. The guitar work of vocalist Dave Silver and Sy Taplin is switched on and engaging, attacking the listener with a veritable orgiastic feast of six-string savagery…pun intended. Silver also possesses a warm, tuneful singing voice, reminiscent of Iced Earth’s firebrand frontman, Matt Barlow, which creates a number of memorable choruses throughout this album’s nine tracks.

While the band’s style may sound a little too close to Iced Earth for comfort, there’s also a bevy of classic metal influences to contend with—Queensryche, Maiden and Priest, of course—which make Insurrection Rising a textbook example of hero-worship at its absolute best. Does this idolization make for uneasy listening? Of course not—not when you have an album which rocks this hard, anyway. Savage Messiah makes some confident first strides here; let’s see where these awesome youngsters take their game on the next time out.