Released by: My Graveyard Productions
Release Date: Out Now!!!
Genre: Trash Metal
Links: http://www.marcoruggiero.com
Line-up:
Marco Ruggiero: vocals, lead&thythm guitars, bass
Michele Coppola: drums
Tracklist:
1. DEATHBURST
2. HYPOCRITE
3. INSIDE SCREAM
4. LIVING NIGHTMARE
5. TO FALL
6. CONCATENATION
7. BULLET HOLE HUNGER
8. WARRIOR PRINCESS
9. FACE TO FACE
10. BLOODLINE
From the south of Italy comes Saviour From Anger a thrash metal band with some heavy metal and power metal influences. Well, forget the word ‘band’….in fact it’s only one guy who holds sway, Marco Ruggiero. On this sophomore album “Age of Decadence” he handles everything but the drums. He seems to be a very busy guy in Italy as he plays in a lot of other metal bands as well. But let us focus on this one.
“Age Of Decadence” gives you ten vintage eighties thrash metal tracks (remember the Bay Area) all clocking in about 4 minutes.
Hailing from Naples Marco seems to be the typical macho guy on the guitar. What you get is mainly loud, fast and testosterone based riffing with the occasional speedy solo (however totally unbalanced with the loud rhythm guitar, crushing any melody of the solo), bashing drums and high pitched vocals.
So far so good you’ll think, but wait. We have a problem here and that’s the total lack of variation, dynamics and depth. The riffs soon sound very monotonous, the bass is hardly distinctive and the drums are boring after while. The vocals often lack a nice melody line and eventually became quite annoying to me.
And the production is weak as well. I wonder how this outfit would sound if there was a real band with a decent producer at work. I mean…. with a separate bass-player and above all a second guitar-player I’m sure that the overall performance could be much more challenging and inventive.This kind of high energy music should arouse the listener to join in head banging, air guitar playing or whatever but in stead of that it just becomes plain boring.
The songs are all below average with the ballad ‘Warrior Princess’ being the absolute low point as this one is completely killed by terrible repeating and unimaginative drums sweeping any kind of ambition under the carpet. Sorry guys, but this is a lackluster album which failed to impress me on all accounts: the songwriting, the performance and the production are below par. I can only recommend this one to die-hard fans of this old-school genre.
Written by Ruud
Ratings Ruud 5/10
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