Coming straight from the land of Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, U.K. throwback metal group Savage Messiah are here to remind you why the ‘70s and ‘80s were fantastic. Their gleefully fun Century Media debut, Hands of Fate—out now—finds the group shifting away from their thrashier, more power-metal-oriented roots into something more assured and melodic. Hands of Fate grips the listener immediately with vocalist and guitarist David Silver’s excellent melodies, and the horns-in-the-air riffs and extended guitar solos are a real treat.
Hitting the reset button is always scary, but when a band come out more powerful and impressive, the results are worth the apprehension. Plus, the idea of a hybrid of Iron Maiden and Bon Jovi—Iron Jovi?—is even more magical once you hear it. Silver notes that the new album begins with a nice metaphor for Savage Messiah’s latest incarnation. “I like the song ‘Hands of Fate’ lyrically,” he shares. “That’s metaphorically two things. It’s sort of the biblical story of Satan—which is pretty heavy metal, [laughs]—but it’s also about the rebirth of the band. This is a complete rebirth for us: new label, new manager, everything totally new.”
For Savage Messiah, making something new meant looking to the old, circling back to what they loved about the rock and metal of yesteryear and adding their own spin. Silver elaborates, “We made a decision that we wanted to write songs. We listened to a lot of classic song-based stuff like Foreigner and, dare I say it, Bon Jovi, stuff that’s really vocal-driven.” Indeed, the new track “Wing and a Prayer” is gloriously Bon Jovi-influenced.
“We sort of felt a bit bored with thrash,” he continues. “We actually wrote two records; the album that we actually ended up recording and shopped around and got a deal on was actually completely different from the original album that we started. When we got in the studio with the producer [Scott Atkins], every time we did anything remotely thrashy, he’d say that it sounded so boring and like an Exodus riff from our last record. He was honest with us and said, ‘You never sounded that good doing Exodus. You sound good when you’re playing big melodic metal, so do more of that.’ We had no record deal at the time, so we said, ‘Why not? Let’s do it!’”
This choice led to other huge changes in both the band’s tone and image—for example, there are no more demonic popes. “One of the things we loved about this new manager is that he brought onboard marketing expertise, noting that we were going in the wrong direction,” Silver admits. “The old artwork is horrible and so cliché. We’re just heavy metal fans, so when we started, we wanted to make something like Iron Maiden, whereas he’s brought a new set of eyes and helped us find more of an original voice. We pushed ourselves on this album to be more purposeful, more professional.”
“It’s the same thing with the lyrics,” he adds. “Things run their course, so you abandon all the juvenile conspiracy theories. For this album, I just looked a lot more inside and thought about writing more about feelings, [laughs], just things that are more metaphorical and abstract, where you can interpret your own thing, rather than, ‘Oh, there’s an evil Illuminati, ah!’ That kind of silliness.”
Speaking of things that could use a proper reboot, Silver has a dread-filled laugh at how Britain is becoming like its long-lost child, the U.S. “I’ve said before that the greatest historical irony is that Britain, for all intents and purposes, is now essentially an American colony,” he chuckles. “If you walk around, it’s Burger King and Five Guys, Holiday Inn. If you turn the TV on, it’s ‘Big Bang Theory’ on repeat. All that with a British accent.”
On behalf of the U.S., we would like to formally apologize for “The Big Bang Theory.”
