Review Summary: A power metal gem that's been overlooked within the genre, as well as within Edguy's discography.
Generally speaking, nowadays Edguy has been blending power metal with hard rock ever since
Rocket Ride, but before their popularity soared with their power metal/hard rock albums and just like every other band. They
had to start somewhere that made them who they are back in their earlier years. In 1995 the band demoed
Savage Poetry when they were still in high school. Only 5 years later would they re-write and re-record the entire demo album and (re-)release it in 2000. But nowadays everyone forgets about Edguy's trve power metal albums, and I'm mainly speaking of
Vain Glory Opera,
Theater of Salvation, and
The Savage Poetry. In one way Edguy's discography can be compared to In Flames' discography, because their older albums are overlooked and ignored by the majority of the fan base that listens to their more mainstream albums. And when I listen to
The Savage Poetry I can't see exactly why this is overlooked.
In
The Savage Poetry we see Edguy at their fullest potential, or at least pretty damn close to it. All you have to hear are the first three songs of the album's setlist – all three sings have some of the fastest drum patterns Edguy has ever produced, straight up power metal vocals from Tobias Sammet that doesn't have his version of sleazy glam metal vocals, and Dirk Sauer is doing an excellent job at rhythm guitars while Jens Ludwig is performing some his best solos I've ever heard in Edguy's catalog. But after the first three songs we have an amazing ballad that's entitled
Sands of Time, the song itself is quite beautiful and worth the listen. Once you think Edguy has soften up on us, the song
Sacred Hell comes soaring in. The album transition from a soft piano ballad to a straight up in-your face power metal song turns out to be a must listen.
After listening to the first four power metal songs that would surprise the listener of the thought of “I didn't know they could pull off real power metal”, and one of their most beautiful ballads ever. The listener stumbles on the album's ten minute epic entitled “Eyes of the Tyrant”. With all do respect the song itself starts off kind of slow with a piano like intro, but around the 1:30 minute marker the song picks up on itself and sounds like every other power metal song Edguy has showcased off this album. But what separates this song from the others is the effort put into it. For starters there's plenty of solos to go around, and just like any other melody that's showcased throughout the entire song whether it be vocals, acoustic and electric guitars, drums, piano, even a jazzy bass lick, everyone gets a chance to show off their talent.
When reflecting on
Eyes of the Tyrant it won't take long that the listener just stepped on a behemoth of a song, and it should enter plenty of Edguy playlists after listening to it. So a question arises: How can Edguy recover themselves after such an epic song? Simple, they put out a 7 minute song that comes close to being an epic, but more or less the epilogue of the album's epic,
Frozen Candle. Basically
Frozen Candle is a mixture of speed metal and power metal, that has powerful vocals from Tobais, acoustic and electric guitars that feature an emotional solo that's not centered around power or speed. But that doesn't stop them from picking up the pace by having the song at a fast-slow-fast transition for the structure of the song. It's a fairly good song none-the-less.
For the last two songs,
Roses To No One is the second ballad off of the album, and compared to the other ballad, this one centers around acoustic guitars to give the mood and melody of the song instead of a piano, it also features an emotional guitar solo as well, but that's just a bonus. As the albums comes to a close,
Power and Majesty enters with a great transition in the album by being an upbeat song. While
The Savage Poetry's epic started to tone down the album as a whole, because the two proceeding songs settled down the mood of the entire album – mainly all three of those songs sounded like one big one to be honest with you, and
Roses to No One was a ballad. So when
Power and Majesty comes in, it picks back up the power metal vibe by having soaring vocal arrangements, an awesome guitar solo; overall just a fun song, and it becomes a spectacular closer.
While
The Savage Poetry may be an overlooked power metal release from within Edguy's discography, it deserves more attention and respect then most are willing to admit. It's also surprising that Edguy used to be more focused on delivering awesome power metal songs that literally had every member contributing more so then they have been in recent years. Personally I'd have to recommend this to any Edguy fan or any power metal fan out there as well,
The Savage Poetry is a truly a gem within the genre.
