Execution Guaranteed

Nearly synonymous in quality with its predecessor, Execution Guaranteed expands upon the creative riffing and quirky ideas at the expensive of maybe going a bit over the top in just a few sections. Just not enough to mar the experience, because like Reign of Fear or all their other output in the 80s, this is an album which feels as fresh and 'new' to me in 2021 as it did when I was a teenager. Perhaps it's because there simply aren't any other bands to come along which have sounded to me quite like what Peavy accomplished, and this thing is just loaded with riffs to fucking die for, still straddling the borders between power and speed and thrash metal, heavy hitting but laden will plenty of melody and finesse. Perhaps it's also that awesome if cheesy cover art with a skeletal gangster, strapped with a tommy gun, and it's kind of the swan song before the band would implement its awesome 'Soundchaser' mascot.

There was one lineup change here, Rudy Graf stepping into the second guitar spot, but even though they're still not in what I'd consider the ultimate Rage formation, I have few if any complaints about any of the musicianship. Swarthy, heavy guitar tones, power drumming, well executed, varied leads, and Wagner's steady bass lines, which are felt slightly less than on the debut. There are a few spots where the snare drum seems a bit too tinny or clappy, but it's a minor gripe when everything else sounds so loud and fantastic. As with the prior album the band has no quips about adding in some keyboards or effects like in the middle of "Deadly Error", or the video game samples that open "Mental Decay", they add a lot of personality. The riffs are all over the place from the tasteful melodic speed metal flurries that would heavily characterize their following two albums, or the crisp low-end chugging which is anything but generic. While Wagner's vocals aren't far from Reign of Fear, I do feel there is a bit more focus on their production which can occasionally make them stand out...he's got such a unique personality between the higher pitched screams and howls and the more gritty mid-range, and it does take some getting used to...but fuck, so doesn't King Diamond.

Nobody can fault his chorus lines, though, delivered amazingly on thundering anthems like "Before the Storm" or the immortally catchy "Hatred", which also features some workmanlike heavy/thrash riffs that remind me of Testament's The Ritual, only five years earlier! They've really mastered the art of the slower track, too, whereas "The Scaffold" bonus track left something to be desired on the debut, "Streetwolf" has no such problems, an atmospheric masterpiece that winds up to the escalating scream of the title with some eerie, clinical muted melodies. You can just imagine walking the misty concrete jungle apocalypse of a fictional, dystopian 80s action movie with this one playing in the background. But in every instance the band is hustling, from the scathing opener "Down by Law" to the finale "When You are Dead" this is also one fun-as-fuck, rousing record that is never far from my mind when I'm appreciating all those unsung Noise Records classics. The cherry on top is that they would keep on getting better...

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

I had great expectations concerning "Execution Guaranteed". Rage´s fantastic debut gave me hope. They were just a short step away from joining the ranks of my personel speed metal heroes. The band just had to outgrow its childhood illnesses and everything would be fine. How naive. Of course, Rage did not take care of my simple trains of thought. Without starting a revolutionary process, they redefined their sound in a more or less significant way. They did not really disappoint me, but the quality level of the debut was not met. Too many songs with comparatively tedious parts had crept in while the production did not exceed an average level. It lacked a bit of pressure and aggressiveness. But do not get me wrong. The overall impression of the vinyl was fairly solid, not at least due to its strong beginning.

"Down by Law" opened the album in a straightforward manner. This was speed metal at its best. The subsequent title track surprised with lyrics about the Mafia, a rather unusual topic at that time. Musically, it stood in the tradition of its counterpart of the debut. Similar to "Reign of Fear", it was focused on creating a gloomy and threatening atmosphere. Rage managed to keep up the suspense during the entire seven minutes of the song. But the album did not shine with an oversupply of really exciting songs. Maybe I was fixated too much on the raw and thrashy approach of the debut. Songs like "Before the Storm (The Secret Affair)" did not follow the principles of underground speed metal. Instead, its very melodic chorus made me think of Helloween´s happy metal formula. Unfortunately, with the exception of "Ride the Sky", Helloween never wrote a good song. Rage could therefore not be compared with these barely disguised posers. Peavy and his partners in crime offered an authentic attitude, an advantage which should not be underestimated.

The B side presented, inter alia, three well configurated songs. Stylistic elements of traditional metal were closely interlinked with speed metal parts. Nonetheless, I was not able to identify outstanding parts. Especially the instrumental "Grapes of Wrath" did not have this certain extra dose of suspense that every instrumental needs in order to compete with the other songs. (Just compare it with Living Death´s "Wood of Necrophiliac" from their masterpiece "Protected from Reality".) Generally speaking, the music on "Execution Guaranteed" was pretty decent; no more, no less. But in terms of Rage, this was almost a crushing verdict. The band seemed to operate in a mechanical way while lacking of liveliness and unpredictability. "When You´re Dead" was not even decent. To put it ironically, it fought very hard in order to achieve its status as a prime example for a real filler. But in view of the trivial chorus and the lackluster guitar work, its fight was successful.

Too bad that Rage was not capable to create the necessary amount of penetrating power, for whatever reasons. Despite the regrettable dominance of mid-tempo parts, the basic structure layed the foundation for a good output. But over the entire running time of the album, the lack of spontaneous and extraordinary features became clear.

The second true album from Germany’s Rage, “Execution Guaranteed,” is their final days in the speed metal territory they started but strangely is also one of their weaker overall efforts which is somewhat below the quality the band usually delivers in.

The first half of the album, and really the album as a whole, doesn’t stray too far in general from their true debut, with a power metal-laced speed metal assault that features stellar riffing overlaid with thunderous drumming and a high-pitched wail with the vocals screaming over the top of the songs. The speed makes the songs up-tempo pace quite infectious and enthusiastic at times, yet with the production giving them an atmosphere and vibe more reminiscent of traditional heavy metal at that time where it’s a lot more massive-sounding than it really is allows the songs to have a life to them. Propelled by the drumming that it allowed to show-off with more complex patterns and fills than before, as well as utilizing a more traditional thrash tactic of near-continuous double-bass throughout the song’s length, gives the songs another dynamic area of attack that’s carried over nicely from the previous album. It all seems pretty much the same overall, but the main difference with this release is that nearly all the good songs on the album are placed here in the first half, which is a rather curious matter in that it’s so front-loaded with the better songs the back-end is barely worthwhile as a whole despite stylistically not being all that different in terms of presentation and effort.

The second half, as mentioned before, doesn’t have too many elements displayed that really signal itself as all that removed from the first grouping of songs, and yet the difference in quality is quite apparent. Stylistically it’s not too different, as they contain the same bombastic mixture of power and speed metal that at times gets a little thrashy, overlaid with the wailing vocals and fantastic drumming that seems to be a continuation of the songs on the first half when just looking at them on the surface. That said, there’s a few instances of an obvious dip in quality here, and that’s to be found with the songwriting rather than the performances, as the second half of this album begins to showcase the band’s increasing desire to drop the speed metal tag and experiment and explore what’s possible within their eclectic metal influences. While leaving out the instrumental to be found in this section, the band’s dropping of the speed and replacing it with a mid-tempo chug is ominous of their later stylistic change a few albums to come where the wailing shrieks disappear, the 80s-ish heavy metal vibe disappears to be replaced more with an up-tempo series of heavy riffs and overall the complete abandoning of thrash and speed metal to adapt to a power metal-like heavy metal group that happens to play pretty fast. Those changes are to be found in this section of the album, and when those songs appear it’s obvious that’s the direction the band intends to explore in the future yet is nowhere near as adept at writing that material yet and leaves those particular songs as lacking overall. The punch is gone, which was apparent in the upper half where that was a near-constant offering, so while the songs as a whole may not be as bad as they seem the lack in quality stems from the songwriting end rather than the performance side of the spectrum.

When the band is capable and firing on all cylinders, the songs here aren’t that bad at all. Opener ‘Down by Law’ is a catchy mid-paced thrasher with superb drumming that overcomes a laid-back pace along it’s middle segments to become a fine effort. The impressive title track marks the beginning stages of their exploratory future with some technical riffing and progressive touches in the drumming without adding a lot of thrash, but still displays enough of their atmospheric power/thrash days to create a really entertaining track. The chugging thrasher ‘Before the Storm (The Secret Affair)’ contains some decent mid-tempo riffing with superb drumming to make for a standout track along with the album’s better solo-work and a gnarly bass riff thrown into the mix. A decent effort is found with ‘Deadly Error,’ a mid-tempo thrasher with simplistic riffing, odd cartoon-ish effects that surprisingly don’t distract from the song at all and bursts of energy in the solos to make for a pretty enjoyable track. The same can be said for closer ‘When You're Dead-attempts to return to the thrash/power sound and mostly succeeds with a few lame riffs holding it back.

The other songs here are the band’s real exploratory efforts that show hints of their future to come. The chugging ‘Hatred’ is a mostly decent track but the fact that the atmosphere of the power metal the song is played in manages to off-set the more laid-back heavy metal aspects of the riffing that creates a clashing aspect to the overall sound as power metal isn’t meant to be played at that speed, leaving it an effort that feels more at home on later albums. The same can be said for ‘Mental Decay,’ which barely features any thrash or speed metal influences and remains steadfast with power metal vocals over the chugging-paced riff-work, again a feature that feels more at home on later releases. These songs are fine overall, and don’t really have any real negative backlash to them beyond feeling out-of-place on this effort, while the one out-and-out bad track is ‘Streetwolf,’ a slowly-paced epic that’s too dreary early on and picks up speed much too late to matter despite some surprisingly good vocals throughout.

So, here we have a minor conundrum in that the album as a whole is impeccably performed and everyone gets a chance to shine for moments of real stand-out nature with a solo section or a lead-part in the song, a series of strong tracks and a few that aren’t necessarily all that bad but seemingly placed at the wrong part of the band’s career to really make as big of an impact as they should’ve since this signals the transition period for the band. This is the part where they drop the speed and power metal influences and concentrate mostly on charging heavy metal with up-tempo pacing from here on out, and that’s not a knock on this album to say that it’s weak in comparison to the rest of their catalog, but more so due the lack of consistent, quality material here which just falls short of what the band is capable of. There’s not a whole lot here that won’t like this one if you enjoyed the previous album, so this is mightily recommended to them as well as to those looking for the period of their career that saw them adopt their current style.

This album picks up where Reign of Fear left off. It follows the speed metal style that their debut album had, though it throws in some new ideas. For example, there's a thrash metal riff in the title track, and this time, Peter uses more variety in his voice. Half of the time, this album reminds me of Blind Guardian's Battalions of Fear as it has heavier (for power/speed metal anyway) riffs, and chanted choruses. Overall, this is better than Reign in Fear, but not quite as great as Perfect Man. It's pretty much in the middle of the two.

The best songs on the album are Down By Law, Deadly Error, and Hatred. Down By Law for some reason reminds me of Blind Guardian a little with the versus, it's pretty nice speed metal. Hatred is easily the best song on the album. It almost sounds like something that would come out of Judas Priest's Painkiller. Seriously, those riffs are fucking killer, and the lyrics are quite awesome as well.

Then, there's slower yet heavier songs like the title track and Streetwolf. The formal is pretty good, as I said before it has a nice thrash riff that carries the song through. However, the latter doesn't really do much for me, as it's too long and boring. Rage aren't usually good at doing slower songs, and it shows here.

While not quite as good as their next album, Execution Guaranteed is a must have for anyone who is into german speed metal like Helloween and early Blind Guardian. So if you're into those two bands, then this album is certainly worth getting.

This album is a step up from the previous. There is the usual complement of speed metal songs, but the song arrangements are much more interesting, with a few really nice thrash breaks thrown in for effect, as well as some of the more melodic stuff that Rage would be known for on later works.

The good: "Down by Law" - you really can't fuck up an album opener, as general principle. "Execution Guaranteed" - another great song, at 6 minutes long they have the time to throw in some new ideas, and that they do, including the aforementioned thrash riffs, and a middle part that sounds little like the ends.

"Before the Storm" shows a more melodic side of the band, with a sing-along chorus that would not be out of place on Perfect Man or even Reflections of a Shadow.

The rest: varies in quality. "When You're Dead" is average speed metal. I mean, if you worship speed metal, like me, you'll like this song. "Hatred" is a bit more midpaced, and sometimes a bit boring. "Streetwolf" is quite boring for the first four minutes before going to double speed. "Mental Decay" is nice speed metal, and so is "Deadly Error", other than the silly "Future World" effects.

Overall, it's pretty decent - a step up over the previous album.