SAVATAGE — Fight For The Rock (review)

SAVATAGE — Fight For The Rock album cover Album · 1986 · Heavy Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
2/5 ·
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.
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