RAGE

I recall that at a RAGE concert in moscow in November 2008, Victor said that the new album had already been recorded, that it would be a disc without any symphonic elements — a normal metal album — and that it would come out in February. He didn't lie: the disc did indeed appear on February 22. Let's note that this is the first album featuring Andre Hilgers as drummer, though his studio baptism by fire came a bit earlier when he recorded nearly the entire NUCLEAR BLAST ALLSTARS album "Into The Light" with Victor — and on one of those songs Peavy himself sings, and on another he provides backing vocals. So let's see what the trio delivered in its updated lineup on the new record, titled "Carved In Stone." Right off the bat, of the 10 compositions, 5 were written by Victor, 4 jointly by Victor and Peavy, and only one entirely by Peavy. The lyrics, as usual, were all penned by Mr. Wagner himself — Victor has never been involved in that department during all his long years with RAGE. And indeed, after "Speak Of The Dead" we hear the familiar sound and music of RAGE... from the later period. That's exactly it — the disc continues the traditions of "Unity" and partly "Soundchaser." On one hand, that's good, since we hear solid, high-quality material in every respect. On the other hand, it's not so great, since the band isn't moving forward. If you will, the material sounds fresh yet not sufficiently new — the songs could easily have been slotted into an album five years ago. Still, there's a degree of subjectivity here. In terms of recording and performance quality, there are no complaints. The only minus is the pompous 10th track that crowns the album. If they decided to go without symphonic elements, they should have maintained that throughout the entire album — Bach's toccata and the keyboard-choral arrangement are clearly out of place here.