IRON SAVIOR - Live At The Final Frontier

July 3, 2015, 8 years ago

(AFM)

Mark Gromen

Rating: 7.0

review heavy metal iron savior

IRON SAVIOR - Live At The Final Frontier

Quick turn-around, as this was a January 10, 2015 club show in Hamburg."Just a couple hundred patrons at Knust saw Iron Savior run through 16 songs: 15 originals and the closing cover of Judas Priest's 'Breaking The Law", in 95 minutes, captured on DVD and a pair of audio CDs, all housed in a tri-fold digi-pak. The '97 debut featured members of Gamma Ray and Blind Guardian, later adding Stormwarrior's bassist, but the current line-up is devoid of big names, backing vocals and bass provided by Jan-Sören Eckert. At times ("Hall Of The Heroes") he practically takes over the starring role. Although advertised as "Bonus Material", there's just 10 minutes of day-of-show footage: initial backstage set-up and a complete fail of "Last Hero", where second guitarist Joachim "Piesel" Küstner's amp was inoperative. They re-do the opener for the proper DVD, which is a combination of stationary cams: side of stage and behind drummer, as well as head-on, from mixing board, a hand-held, professional camera and four fan, shot-from-the-audience (oft blurry or washed out) contributors. 

Throughout, the three musicians stand stoic across the stage, bathed in purple/blue/pink/white lights on the minuscule club stage. In the center is bald mainman/songwriter/guitarist Piet Sielck, mouth agape and working the whammy bar. Between song joking/banter is in Deutsche. The black and white filmed "The Savior" sees Sielck alone, in color. "Break The Curse" shatters the status quo, adding red lights (the namesake lighting not seen again until "Condition Red") and Piesel dropping to his knees for a stint at the front of the stage. The lively "Burning Heart" employs split screen images. The album title name-checking "R U Ready" has a different rhythm to the sci-fi obsessed material. Twin guitar leads and quad-screens greet "Atlantis Falling", which carries right into the cover tunes, where the screen is shrunk ("Retrofication" flashes onscreen). Piet cedes his guitar for the few bars of "Breaking The Law' aired. Not sure how this will be priced, but the DVD should be "free", as there's precious little, in the way of visuals, thus it works better (and probably deserves a point higher review) solely as a live album.



Featured Video

KELEVRA - "The Distance"

KELEVRA - "The Distance"

Latest Reviews