Review Summary: Axxis Drops the Ball.
By 1995, the battle was already over.
The hard rock and melodic metal scene that had given birth to Axxis was in ruins. Grunge had conquered the mainstream, record labels were abandoning veteran acts, and countless bands were desperately reinventing themselves in search of relevance (even the almight Slayer flirted with alternave sound). But Axxis marched on like nothing was happening. While many of their peers were chasing trends, the Germans had stubbornly continued flying the melodic hard rock flag, culminating in The Big Thrill, arguably of the the strongest and most consistent album of their early career.
Which makes Matters of Survival such a frustrating record.
Because unlike so many hard rock casualties of the mid 90's, Axxis did not "betray" its identity. The songwriting still sounds unmistakably like Axxis. Bernhard Weiss still attacks every vocal line with his trademark urgency. The melodies are still there. The choruses still aim for the skies. On paper, this album should have worked.
And yet, somehow, it doesn't.
The biggest mystery surrounding Matters of Survival is its production. I simply cannot understand what the band, the producer, or anyone involved in the recording process was thinking. The year was 1995, not 1985! We were already living in a post Black Album world, where even mainstream hard rock records had gained weight, depth, and a sense of power. Yet somehow, Axxis ended up with a guitar sound that feels thinner than what they had on albums released half a decade earlier. Damn, even Bon Jovi is heavier than Matters of Survival.
To be fair, The Big Thrill suffered from some of the same issues. The guitars weren't exactly crushing there either. The difference was that the songwriting was so consistently strong that it largely compensated for those shortcomings. Here, however, everything implodes. The weak production exposes every crack in the material. The rhythm guitars sound lifeless, the riffs arrive with no impact, and the entire album feels strangely underpowered.
The strangest part is that the songs themselves are not fundamentally broken. Musically, Axxis still follows the same blueprint that made its previous records so enjoyable. Bernhard Weiss remains the album's greatest asset, delivering another passionate performance with his unmistakable high-pitched voice. Tracks like "Ecstasy", "C'est La Vie" and "Just a Story" contain flashes of the old magic. Unfortunately, flashes are all they remain.
Not everything is a casualty of the album's misguided production, however. "On My Own" stands tall as the record's undisputed highlight and serves as a welcome reminder of what Axxis was capable of when inspiration struck. Despite all the problems surrounding Matters of Survival, the song proves once again that the band had a genuine gift for writing power ballads. The melody is beautiful, Weiss delivers one of his most heartfelt vocal performances, and the cleaner production actually works in the song's favor. In fact, "On My Own" is so good that it almost feels like it wandered onto the wrong album.
The bigger problem is that the fillers finally outnumber the highlights. Previous Axxis albums certainly had weaker moments, but they also featured enough spectacular songs to carry the listener through those occasional dips. In many ways, Matters of Survival is more disappointing than a truly bad album.
A truly bad album would have been easier to explain. Axxis could have chased grunge. They could have embraced industrial metal. They could have buried their melodies beneath layers of misguided aggression. Instead, they remained faithful to the sound that had brought them this far.
The problem is that faithfulness alone is not enough.
For the first time in their career, Axxis delivered an album where solid ideas were consistently undermined by weak execution. The songs often feel underpowered, the production drains much of the band's natural energy and too many tracks fail to leave a lasting impression.
Matters of Survival isn't a disaster. But coming after three consecutive records that showed a band constantly improving, this is the moment Axxis finally drops the ball.
