The year 2002 brought along a great deal of good things in the world of Metal music. In this article I'll take you through some of my personal highlights.
First a few of my favourite albums in the past year.
My number one release of the past year is a concept album,
Pain of Salvation - Remedy Lane. Right from the first time I listened to the album I knew this was something special. I'm sitting here listening to the album almost a year after its release and the effect is still astounding. Right from the opening chords, chills are running down my spine. I gave this one the perfect grade when I
reviewed it and that I will forever stand by. A masterpiece of the highest calibre. The music on Remedy Lane is magical and it transcends all boundaries and goes straight to my soul. Every single song has something to say and the songs interconnect with each other in a way I just cannot describe. Not since
Savatage - Streets A rock Opera has an album had this powerful effect on me.
Remedy Lane even surpasses older masterpieces like
The Edge by
Eternity X. Remedy Lane has an even stronger personal bond with me.
It's hard to draw out highlights of an album that is so filled with them. It almost feels unfair to point out one thing without also pointing out a hundred others. The soft emotional intro to the album, the genius rythms of
Fandango and
Rope Ends, Daniel Gildenlöw's incredible vocal performance, the remarkable ideas and inventiveness that appear in the music all over the album and above all, the way
Daniel Gildenlöw takes the listener right into his soul, by ripping it open and pouring all his emotions into the songs. A song like
Trace of blood still sends chills down my spine. The somewhat happy vibe of the music stands in stark contrast to the heart-wrenching lyrics.
Rope ends is another desperate highlight. And I still feel huge emotions while listening and reading the lyrics to
Chain sling,
Second Love and
This heart of mine. This album is fantastic and it's power flows through my veins whenever I listen to it.
Did you miss this one? It's never too late you know. You just have to be prepared for something different than most other bands are capable of creating. Give it a chance and you might be swept of your feet.
2002 also saw the comeback of one of my favourite musicians,
Buddy Lackey (Psychotic Waltz), now reborn with the name
Devon Graves and his band
Dead Soul Tribe. This was a very interesting release and one I have spent countless hours listening to. While it didn't quite reach the magnitude of the classic
Psychotic Waltz albums it still showed huge amount of potential for this new band.
Finally
Manowar was back with a new album. They have never let me down before and they did not disappoint this time either. A somewhat different album from what they have done before, but undeniably Manowar, and their power to write fantastic Heavy Metal songs is still intact. They even created one of my favorite Manowar songs with
Swords in the Wind. To hear this one being played live at the show in Copenhagen is something I will never forget.
My long time favourites
Enuff Z'nuff released a new album and proved that they haven't lost their touch, like many critics seem to believe. Well, if they really tried listening to the music instead of looking at the image of the band, they might just discover something quite wonderful.
Welcome to Blue Island showed a much happier Donnie Vie than we're used to and that gave the album some new energy. Songs like
Sanibel Island,
Saturday,
Good times,
Can't wait and
Falling in love again are new EZN classics.
Close to the end of the year
Symphony X released their new feast of powerful Progressive Metal.
The Odyssey is a strong competitor for my favourite album by them. I feel there is still many hours of listening to be had with this album before I've discovered all the magic concealed within it. Already some songs and passages are among my favourite of the year. Like always the musicianship is flawless and head and shoulders above most other bands.
Tori Amos is one of my favourite non-metal artists and 2002 saw the release of her concept album
Scarlet's Walk. A tough one to get into and it's still growing on me after a month of listening. I, for one am happy that she's concentrating more on the piano than electronic sounds and this album has some huge emotions tugged away in it. I'm sure that after a couple of more months of listening I will come to cherish this one as much as her other albums, though it will have a hard time surpassing
Little Earthquakes.
André Matos (Vocals),
Luis Mariutti (Bass) and
Ricardo Confessori (Drums) left the Brazillian band
Angra and formed
Shaman. They created their fantastic debut album
Ritual, where they managed to sound even more like Angra than the new version of that band, who released the almost equally great
Rebirth. To me
Ritual manages to surpass
Rebirth on pretty much all counts. Imagine Angra reborn with new power and even more energy and you'll have an idea of the musical direction of
Shaman. Orignal Progressive Power Metal with Brazillian influences.
One of the nice surprises of the year was
Clive Nolan and Oliver Wakeman - The hound of the baskervilles. This is a concept album about the Sherlock Holmes story and the album beautifully captures a very special atmosphere. Several fantastic singers and musicians participated on the album. A few of those who drew my attention are:
Arjen Lucassen (Ayreon) and
Karl Groom (Threshold) on Guitars,
Bob Catley and
Michelle Young on vocals and along with them are several other great musicians. Of course it would be nothing without
Clive Nolan and
Oliver Wakeman, who have written the music and play their keyboards with huge skill. They have created one of the highlights of the year in the progressive/Symphonic rock field. Now, if only I could find their first album Jabberwocky...
Of course the year wouldn't have been complete if I had not discovered the beautiful music of
Damian Wilson (Threshold, Star One) in his solo album
Disciple. You can read a review of that album
here. It was released in 2001, but I only found it in 2002, so it deserved an honorable mention I feel.
The above are just a few of the highlights I wanted to bring forward. There were many other fantastic albums released, but time is preventing me from writing too much more and I don't want to bore you to death... Hello! Are you still there? Oh, bugger...
Onto the concerts then...
Starting the year with
Savatage and
Vicious Rumors concerts two days in a row was more than I ever dreamed of, but true it was. Two excellent concerts which I enjoyed every moment of. The crowd was not so big at the show in Aarhus, but the bands didn't care and put on a fantastic show each night. I hope they will be back in Aarhus on their next tour too. Even standing by the tour bus after the concert in Copenhagen and watching the
Mountain King play Playstation 2 through the window was funny.
Pain of Salvation live at Tex was a fantastic concert too.
Read the review for more info on that.
Wacken Open Air was, as always the festival highlight of the year. Even spending the three days without a sleeping bag was a minor flaw in a festival that had many of my favourite bands playing. Finally I got to see
Falconer live and I was not disappointed. A fantastic band.
Check out the Wacken Festival Report here.
Still, nothing will surpass that magical evening in Hamburg with
Star One. The triumphant and energized show they put on is still very real in my mind. Best concert of the year without a doubt.
Read a review of that show here.
Alice Cooper showed everybody how to put on a captivating scene show. This guy shows no signs of old age and put on a powerful performance at the show in Copenhagen.
Check out a report from that show here.
It was also magnificent to behold
Manowar playing live in Copenhagen. They blew KB Hallen apart with their amazing sound and played a concert with one highlight after the other. The best Manowar concert I have seen yet. This evening was Heavy Metal in its truest and most powerful form.
Check out the report from that show here.
Sun Caged from Holland was quite a revelation too. These guys just enjoy music and they captured me and Tajs during the concert in Kolding with their technical prowess. This is a band to look out for in the future. A report from that concert will be online soon.
A couple of other things worth mentioning
Another good thing that happened in 2002 was the comeback to the music scene by
Shawn Ames, the mastermind behind
Lord Bane, a band that might ring a bell to some. His new band
Morpheous is in the process of making a new album and this is one of the releases I look most forward to hearing in 2003.
I, of course cannot look back at the year that passed without mentioning perhaps the biggest happening in the metal community ever.
RevelationZ Magazine went online on July 27'th!!! :)
We've had a great 5 months online with a surprising amount of visitors and with more and more people finding our site the future looks good. You can rest assured that we will be around for many years to come.
And now for something completely different...
Top 20 Favourite albums of 2002
01. Pain of Salvation - Remedy Lane
(Progressive Metal)
Read review
02. Dream Theater - Six degrees of inner turbulence
(Progressive Metal)
03. Symphony X - The Odyssey
(Progressive Metal)
Read review by Tommy
04. Enuff Z'nuff - Welcome to Blue Island
(Melodic Hard Rock)
Read review by Michael
05. Manowar - Warriors of the World
(Heavy Metal)
Read review
06. Star One - Space Metal
(Progressive Metal)
07. Clive Nolan and Oliver Wakeman - The Hound of The Baskervilles
(Symphonic Rock concept album)
08. Tori Amos - Scarlet's Walk
(Not really any defined style, but definitely progressive music...)
09. Genius - Episode 1
(Progressive Metal with different singers)
10. Nightwish - Century Child
(Symphonic Metal with Operatic female vocals)
11. Rhapsody - Power of the Dragonflame
(Symphonic Power Metal)
Read review by Tommy
12. Falconer - Chapters from a vale forlorn
(Progressive Power/Folk Metal)
13. Vanden Plas - Beyond Daylight
(Progressive Metal)
Read review by Tommy
14. Dead Soul Tribe - Dead Soul Tribe
(Progressive Metal)
15. Avantasia - The Metal Opera Pt. 2
(Melodic Heavy Metal)
Read review
16. Shaman - Ritual
(Progressive Power Metal with Braazillian influences)
17. Mike Tramp - Recovering the wasted years
(Melodic Hard Rock)
Read review by Michael
18. Blind Guardian - A night at the Opera
(Complex Power Metal)
19. Thine - In Therapy -
(Melancholic Hard Rock)
Read review
20. Doomsword - Resound the horn
(Epic Powerful Viking Metal)
The order may be slightly rearranged tomorrow, so don't put too much into that, except for the top five... All these albums come with my highest recommendations, so if you missed out on any of them, then you can trust me and put them on your shopping list for 2003. And of course then there are the many albums that I missed this year. If you know any albums you think should be included on this list, you're very welcome to write your own suggestions below.
So, to conclude I would like to say: If 2003 is even to come close to 2002 in terms of highlights and quality releases, it will indeed be a great year for all of us.
Metal Greetings to all you who managed to read this article. If you just skimmed to the bottom, then shame on you... :)
What do you think? Did I miss anything? Got any interesting additions then let me know below.
