Track Listing
1. Beginning of the end 2. Back in time 3. Ghosts 4. Wash my sins away 5. Fear 6. Love and fear unite 7. Vanished in haze 8. Spiritual awakening 9. Love after death 10. More than a lifetime 11. Tomorrow's yesterday Year: 1999 Label: GUN - Official Site |
Rage - 'Ghosts' - By J. Korkiam�ki
Rage have always been a band which has never been satisfied witht their quantity or quality. Ghosts is a theme album, a story about a man and a woman and their everlasting love even after death, and because of Rage�s hunger for power, it�s even more ambitious and symphonic than any of the previous Rage albums with Lingua Mortis as their aid. Just before Ghosts was released, the whole band dumped Peavy, even the long time drummer Chris Efthimiadis. They still play on the album, but in the booklet the guys posing with Peavy are the replacements for the next album. The guitars are done by the White Russian Victor Smolski, who previously was the leading man of the average (read: BAD) progressive metal band Mind Odyssey, and he even plays a couple of solos on the album. The man behind the drums is the �been there, done that� guy Mike Terrana, who should be familiar to heavy metal fans from bands like Yngwie Malmsteen�s band and Artension. Ghosts differs very much from every other Rage album. The ballads are more in numbers, and almost every song begins with a slow and threatening intro, or even with a guitar intro that sounds just like Bon Jovi (!). Let�s go to the starting line...the first song, �Beginning Of The End� is quite spooky material, which once again combines awesome lyrics, a heavy symphonic drive and vocal lines, which could easily be converted into a poem. The first half of the album continues with the album�s best material furthermore, Spiros� screaming licks begin maybe the best song on the album, �Back In Time�, which is quite close to the atmosphere on End Of All Days and especially XIII. There is much of experimental material on the album. �Love And Fear Unite� begins with the Bon Jovish intro I told you about, and the chorus is even a bit punky (another !). �Vanished In Haze� sounds overall more like stadion rock than the band, which started out as a no frills speed metal pump. �Spiritual Awakening� is once again a step back into the older material, and from a musical view, sounds much like �Heartblood� from the previous album. When �Tomorrow�s Yesterday� catches its final chords, there is still one bonus track on the digipak version. �End Of Eternity� is surprisingly a song with a good mood and feeling, and it really lightens up the atmosphere after a sad ghost story like this. I�m sure everyone has their doubts about Ghosts, and I�m also quite sure that all Rage fans will not like this album. I, on the other hand think that this is really cool, atmospheric, awesome and nevertheless, professional music, Peavy has really put an awesome effort on the vocals, and every single bit of this album is so sad and beautiful. If you want to settle down and just lie on your back digging up into the corners of your mind, Ghosts is definitely the album for you. Fantastic. Metal Obsessive Grade: 98% |