martindavey87 Aw no... What happened here?!

Savatage were doing so well after the release of 'Power of the Night', an album that gave them real credibility in the metal community, so how do they follow it up? With a hard rock album!

Granted, there were circumstances in play beyond the band's power that forced 'Fight for the Rock' into being, and in all fairness it's not as terrible as it's often made out to be by fans, but it certainly sticks out like a sore thumb among the groups discography. And my God, that cheesy as hell cover doesn't help matters!

Despite the AOR-inspired compositions, Criss Oliva's trademark riffing is still firmly in place, and brother Jon Oliva's vocals still soar as powerfully as before. But for the most part, the songs just don't have that same spark that previous releases did. The "metal " energy just isn't there. And while some of the songs are still fairly decent, there's just a lot of generic 80's cheese to sift through first.

Let's try to be optimistic for a moment though, and look for the positives. 'Fight for the Rock' itself is a pretty good song, and a rerecorded 'Out on the Streets' is a nice treat, though not really one anyone in particular asked for. 'The Edge of Midnight' is a solid Savatage track, if you can just tolerate its awful keyboard intro, and 'She's Only Rock and Roll' has some vintage Savatage riffing going on. But there's also some complete drivel such as 'Day After Day' and the fact that almost every song has some incredibly God-awful 80's synths going on. Can't win 'em all, I guess.

Thankfully this would remain nothing more than a small blip on Savatage's radar, as they would quickly go on to return to their original metal sound and release some of their finest music. Buy this one if you're a collector, shut up, accept it for what it is, and let's all just get on with our lives.

UMUR "Fight For The Rock" is the 3rd full-length studio album by US, Florida based heavy rock/metal act Savatage. The album was released through Atlantic Records in June 1986. There´s been one lineup change since "Power Of The Night (1985)" as bassist Keith Collins has been replaced by Johnny Lee Middleton. "Fight For The Rock" is often considered the odd one out in Savatage discography and the band have often gone on record saying that they weren´t too happy about it. It was not popular among the band´s fans or reviewers either. Lead vocalist/Keyboard player Jon Oliva had begun writing pop/rock material for other artists signed to Atlantic Records, but the label insisted that some of those songs should be recorded by Savatage and featured on "Fight For The Rock"...

...hence the shift in musical direction on this album compared to the first two. "Power Of The Night (1985)" also featured a couple of more mainstream oriented moments (most notably "Hard For Love"), but was still overall a relatively hard edged heavy/power metal album. The music on "Fight For The Rock" is a departure from the harder edged sound of the first two albums, and almost solely features mainstream oriented heavy rock/metal (with pretty generic man loves woman type lyrical themes). This is still unmistakably the sound of Savatage, but much softer and deliberately commercial in sound. The best example of that is probably "Day After Day".

The material on 10 track, 37:54 minutes long album is accessible, relatively well written, and well arranged for the style, and in some cases memorable beyond the album´s playing time. Few tracks stand out as something out of ordinay for the time and musical style, but tracks like "The Edge Of Midnight", "Hyde", "Red Light Paradise", and the title track, are small highlights on an otherwise pretty standard quality release.

One of the great assets of the album is the high level musicianship. Jon Oliva has lost none of his vocal power and rawness, although his performance here was his most varied up until then. The rhythm section is solid as a rock, and Criss Oliva also plays convincing. At times delivering blistering leads. The sound production is professional, clear, and well sounding, so it´s mostly in the songwriting department where things are different compared to the preceeding Savatage releases. I suspect that much of the criticism "Fight For The Rock" has gotten over the years, has more to do with the fact that it was released on a wrong premise (namely the label´s and not the band´s) than it has to do with the actual quality of the music. The shift in musical direction was too abrupt and for many fans probably felt a bit too calculated towards commercial success. Putting on more objective glasses "Fight For The Rock" is still a decent quality heavy rock/metal release and a 3 star (60%) rating isn´t all wrong.

J-Man Fight For The Rock is often considered to be the "thud" in Savatage's discography, and after hearing the album it's not hard to understand why. This is a really weak album. Even the band is upset with the complete artistic failure of this album. I am a pretty big fan of Savatage, and I consider them to be one of my favorite metal bands. Unfortunately, I have a tough time defending any of the material on Fight For The Rock, as most of it is pretty weak.

Fight For The Rock is Savatage's third album. Their first two albums are small classics in the early to mid 80's heavy metal scene, and I must imagine that this was a big disappointment when it was released in 1986. All of intensity and power in Savatage's music isn't present on this album, and instead we have a formulaic pop metal album. There are quite a few parts on Fight For The Rock that are just pure mainstream pop, and most of the album is without any of the metal sounds that Savatage is known for.

One of the biggest flaws of Fight For The Rock is the fact that a good amount of the album is either uninspired cover tracks, and even a rework of a previous song. I like it when things like these are used as bonus tracks, but I often get frustrated when they eat up a good amount of the playing time on an album, especially when the album is a mere 38 minutes. It doesn't really matter though, because the original compositions aren't that good anyway.

The only songs from this album that I actually enjoy is the proggy The Edge of Midnight and heavier Hyde. The rest of the album is passable at best. Songs like Crying For Love, She's Only Rock 'N' Roll, Wishing Well and Day After Day are more than skip-worthy.

The musicianship is much weaker than I'm used to hearing from a great band like Savatage. Most of the album is lackluster and uninspired, and the simple riffs get very trivial by the end of the album. I've heard this band do much better.

The production is a typical 80's heavy metal sound, and it's something that I don't really enjoy very much. It's not terrible, but the entire album sounds like it was just mixed on the whim to sound like a top 10 hit (which, of course, is very true, if you know anything about this album). The annoying drum sound and vocal production doesn't help make this weak album any more appealing.

Conclusion:

Fight For The Rock is always considered the weakest Savatage album, and I must say that I agree. When I first bought this album I was pretty excited since I really do love this band, but I'm afraid to say that I really don't care for Fight For The Rock at all. This is worth a 1.5-2 star rating at most.