Grave Digger are releasing this EP as an taster for their forthcoming album ‘Clash of the Gods’, these Germans are one of the originators of this power metal sound, I personally hold their first three releases, when they were musically different, as their best in all fairness apart from a couple of minor exceptions throughout their expansive career.
What you get is three new tracks and three live tracks recorded at the famous Wacken Open Air Festival in 2010. The redeeming feature of this EP (for the studio tracks that is) is the Wacken Festival Hymn ‘Metal Will Never Die’. It is a Euro metal anthem that is admittedly a little tongue in cheek, but the overall feedback of any genuine Euro metal fan would be of support for this song with its relation to the music and its fans, the community if you would. ‘Home at Last’ is a slow plodding power metal number; in fact it is too slow with the only redeeming feature being the vocals. Chris Boltendahl (the only original member) may have developed his vocal sound via the influence of German legend Udo Dirkschneider (IMO anyway), and in recent releases Boltendahl has delivered a signature sound of his own which is raspy, powerful and complimentary to the style of music, but this is still not enough to give you any real buzz. Rather than thundering on full throttle, especially on ‘Rage of the Savage Beast’, the band plods along for what seems like an eternity and I fear they are beginning to lose their identity and are unfortunately becoming stagnated.
The live tracks give you a good idea of a Grave Digger show, having personally witnessed multiple shows myself by this band, I can confirm, the experience is uplifting and genuine. ‘Ballad of a Hangman’ is perhaps a weird choice, from one of their most recent releases, so in that respect it makes sense to give the listener a varied range of your past glories. When past glories are mentioned, you cannot ignore ‘Excalibur’ and the album it came from as it was a pivotal point where changes in the Grave Digger sound continued as part of their album trilogy (aka. ‘The Middle Ages Trilogy’) released between 1996 to 1999. But the jewel of this EP is the final track, and my favourite Grave Digger tune (their true anthem!) ‘Heavy Metal Breakdown’. It is simply a classic, the sound is good, and the energy is electrifying (even if the crowd don’t always sing when instructed!).
I like the fact that bands release EP’s, it give a collector something more than a soulless mp3 and a taster of future albums, but I hope that the forthcoming album has a few more up tempo songs on it, otherwise we may be in for a disappointing experience. Don’t get me wrong, Grave Digger are bloody good at what they do, but they need new blood, they need to ensure that they don’t fall into the trap of complacency as the one decent studio track on this EP isn’t really good enough for a band of this stature.
(5.5/10 Paul Maddison)
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