The Landing

[davidn]

Mblaaghgahaghablbhalhaglhalbhalhghgh!!

Iron Savior have just released a new album! (As Iron Savior, I mean, not the almost identical Savage Circus). Piet had said that they were going to finally come back in 2011, but with the year nearly over I thought that they were gone for good - I searched again to see if anyone was releasing anything new and found more than I realized I was hoping for.

I'm not sure why I'm so uncharacteristically bubblingly ecstatic about this, other than saying that they hold a huge amount of nostalgia for me. I'm instantly taken back to my first year of university - though I can't really say that as a positive thing either seeing as my first year of university was terrible. I think that it just reminds me of that first moment when I found a band producing music that I liked that wasn't long dead.

After five years away, it feels like they're somehow starting something new - from the almost Dream Theater-like abstract album cover to the way that the new video sounds like an updated title song for them - I haven't look into what the storyline is yet, but my thought that he was deliberately writing it out at the end of the last album was wrong. The sound is somewhat slower and heavier than their speed-metal-like early releases and sounds somewhat like Hammerfall, but the harmonic choruses are back along with the unmistakable hugeness of the sound - I absolutely love that pre-chorus, especially with the choir added at the end. What an incredibly welcome return!

Oh, and it's Thanksgiving or something, too.

Comments

[kjorteo]

That's all right; lord knows I've been there myself. :)

Edit: Also, it appears that Iron Savior took Jan-S back for this album! I guess there just wasn't enough murderous death glaring in the lineup without him. Apparently he's still in Masterplan, too, and is just doing double duty as an official for-real member of both bands at the same time ... he must have picked up that habit from spending too much time around Mike Terrana.

[davidn]

I knew he was somehow familiar in the video! I didn't recognize him when he was smiling. I suppose that means Savage Circus is a slightly more distinct band again.

There was a point, just after I discovered all this, when Kai Hansen was in every single latest album I discovered by every band (Iron Savior, Gamma Ray, Heavenly, in that order) - I can understand why he cut his guest appearances down shortly afterwards.

I'm not sure why things like this reduce me to such a gibbering heap unlike actual important things in the world, but I know exactly what you were feeling then. I'd also like to note how surprisingly not-far-off my guess as to the album cover was!

[kjorteo]

I knew Allen/Lande had a tendency to mismatch covers to songs after Reach a Little Longer, The Forgotten Ones, Master of Sorrow, When Time Doesn't Heal, and more ... but yes, now that we can look back at that entry in hindsight, they really outdid themselves with Copernicus, didn't they.

I should also note that, after fangirl-squealing I did in that old entry there, The Showdown actually ended up being even better than I anticipated, including a song I overlooked at first (if only because it's surrounded by so much other awesomeness everywhere else on the album!) that, upon closer review, became literally nothing less than my go-to thing to quote when I talk about what I consider to be the meaning of life. Here's hoping the new Iron Savior album similarly lives up to your excitement! :)

[kjorteo]

Or ... I guess there's less "here's hoping this album turns out as well as this teaser promises" in this case since it's already out, isn't it. Sorry, don't mind me.

[davidn]

It's certainly a good feeling to have not only discovered this this morning, but found that there was no wait for it! Somehow I completely forgot about checking, and then remembered again six days after the album's release.

I think that the hardest part now will be holding off listening to the whole thing on Youtube before I get it...

[kjorteo]

Also, despite their individually both being in almost every band ever, I just realized that I don't know of any projects that simultaneously featured Mike Terrana and Michael Kiske in the same room ... although there was a very near-miss when Kiske almost joined Masterplan, the deal only falling through because he refused to tour. Of course, then they just turned to the other vocalist from absolutely everywhere and got Jorn Lande to do it ... but anyway!

Terrana did (perhaps unsurprisingly) work with Gamma Ray at one point, though, so he can at least put Kai Hansen on his checklist.

[davidn]

On some Wikipedia articles, there's a sort of Gantt chart showing the times each member was in the band - I can only name a few people as having non-consecutive... tenures in one band, but a cross-band version of that would look interesting. No, I'm not doing it.