Reflections of a Shadow

Man, this album is a mess. Rage was apparently under pressure by the label to create a commercially successful album, which explains this album's inconsequentialness, I suppose. First two Rage albums are speed metal classics, and with the addition of Manni Schmidt, the band achieved its true potential. Reflections of a Shadow, however, is more or less completely skippable.

Rage is known for changing their sound every few albums and their experimentations. Here, however, the experiments simply don't work. The songwriting is mostly directionless and there is too much difference between each song, and none of them sound like they belong on the same album. Furthermore, the songs themselves are mostly subpar by Rage standards. That's Human Bondage sounds like Savatage gone wrong with its annoying groove. True Face in Everyone is a mishmash of random ideas that fail to unite into a cohesive whole. Flowers That Fade in My Hand and Faith attempt to be moody and atmospheric with a mere semi-success. Dust is a bit closer in this regard, but still no cigar. Finally, Can't Get Out has some very, very irritating overfast vocals in the verses and a completely shit bridge afterwards.

The production is also lacking. It's not bad, but it is quite a letdown compared to other Schmidt-era Rage albums. Perfect Man and Secrets in a Weird World had a raw, melodic crunch to the guitar tone with tons of reverb for extra depth, as well as the thundering drums similar to the ones on Battalions of Fear and Walls of Jericho. Trapped! and The Missing Link employed a few Painkiller elements, thus adding much more muscle to both the guitars and the drums. On Reflections of a Shadow, everything is upfront, polished and inoffensive. Again, it's not bad (certainly not as bad as Rage's post-Unity material), but it does hinder the album's enjoyment to a certain degree.

There are, however, some good songs here. The title track, Waiting For the Moon and Nobody Knows are all fun rockers; Wild Seed is solid speed metal in the vein of the first two Rage albums and Saddle the Wind is the best song on this album and would not be out of place on Perfect Man or Secrets in a Weird World with its melodic, speedy riffs and an epic chorus. Unfortunately, even these songs pale in comparison to the songs Rage has already written up until this point. This album has no speed metal monsters like Down by Law, no interesting mid-paced songs like Execution Guaranteed, no epic speed metal fury-storms like Between the Lies or Invisible Horizons and no melodic masterpieces like Light Into the Darkness. And for all its attempted catchiness, this album has nothing on the level of Don't Fear the Winter, Supersonic Hydromatic or A Pilgrim's Path (though Saddle the Wind comes close).

In short, this album is an overly poppy collection of messy experiments and an occasional okay song. Kinda like Helloween's Chameleon, but not as bad. All in all, skippable.

It would have been a terribly tall task to write a follow-up to Secrets in a Weird World and Perfect Man that could match them track for track, so Peavy Wagner and Rage just settled in to do what they do best...write a bunch of songs, and once again I was quite impressed with the results. The album doesn't look like much on the cover, but then, neither did the commercial release of Secrets over here. Strangely, the album kind of sounds like it looks, this is a more measured, mellow Rage that can still release the Kraken when necessary, but chooses here to attempt a more diverse slate of songs that are moodier, with a lot of tempos and riffs that felt pretty fresh even compared to their first four CD. Reflections of a Shadow is for me a closure to that 80s decade of excellence, perhaps the end of the streak of 'mandatory' early albums that I always revisit, but like its year of release might imply, the writing heavily insinuates that the band was ready to try new things for a new age, reinvent itself whenever needed without losing touch of its original identity.

This one has a nice, moody intro with brooding ambient synths and acoustics that leads into quite a contrast with the hooky, mid-paced and groovy "That's Human Bondage", which at least reveals to us that Peavy's screaming personality was well-intact, he hadn't run out of juice on the miraculous albums before it. The riffs are still ambitious and unique sounding, and the production doesn't sound all that different than on Secrets, its just that the cuts are a little more melancholic and almost depressed sounding than the joygasmic speed, riffing and chorus work before it. Take songs like "True Face in Everyone" or "Flowers That Fade in My Hand", they're more progressively paced, structured and simply go to places Rage hadn't really gone before, with awesome bass-work, judicious but tasteful use of synthesizers, and riffs that have to learn to titillate you with slower guitar patterns and more mixed cleans and electrics. Fortunately, this is not ALL the record has to offer, and you get scorchers like the title track, the crazy "Can't Let Go" and the INSANELY catchy "Waiting for the Moon", which should have honestly been a more popular breakout track for them on MTV...it's metal, but has a hard rock edge to it that reminds me of Zakk Wylde-era Ozzy Osbourne, which initially I loved on No Rest for the Wicked. That chorus totally kicks ass, and I'm not exaggerating when I say I think Manni Schmidt could play right alongside with most of the Prince of Darkness' axe heroes.

"Saddle the Wind" is another catchy fast-paced tune, but the back half of this album is full or more sweltering, slower numbers like "Faith" and "Dust" where the band is keeping its pace to try and clout you with a lot more emotion than you might expect. The metal is still being threaded through all of these, with some righteous leads, lots of guitar effects and the same superior writing tear they'd been on since the mid-80s, but again there are more clean parts, Peavy does lower pitched singing for the verses, and you get some organs and other ingredients that almost give some of these a power ballad/rock opera feel. I also like that it swings back into a heavy, driving anthem "Nobody Knows" for the finale, which is a tune that would have fit right in on Secrets in a Weird World. Overall, it's a bit dimmer and more weather-worn sounding than the albums leading up to it, but these Reflections just don't go away, no matter how many years come along and try to dilute the waters. This is another gem on the crown of a band which has sat underappreciated for far, far too fucking long, among the not-so-secret-kings of that massive German scene whose steel has barely dulled in decades.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

“Reflections of a shadow” is the first setback on the discography of a band whose talent didn't seem to reach its roof. This drop on quality is weird in a series of albums with ascendant quality as Rage early albums. I tend to think that probably this album was formed with the dismissed tracks of the previous albums, although there's also this opinion that says Rage would have searched to write more commercial songs for the company, which pretended to give an alternative to the “Keeper of the Seven Keys part II” listeners. Whatever the reason is, the band would for sure have noticed it, and that's why the next album was by far much better than this one.

By the other hand, it's especially common in bands with a huge discography to forget the albums placed on the middle of two generally considered better albums, and both "Secrets in a weird world" and "Trapped!" are by far worth more than this one. But unlike other cases (I think in South of heaven of Slayer), this one has an intrinsic low quality. It's not fair to be considered at the same level than its predecessor. The word that would describe the better it is boring, an odd one for a band which is widely recognized thanks to the catchiness in their music.

However, I will also have good words for the CD. There are a couple of songs that I would rescue and probably include in one of Rage set-lists. The first one is Saddle The Wind, that along with other fast songs are the most remarkable ones, as they sound more like Rage. The other would be That's Human Bondage, the only one of the mid-paced songs that is catchy (probably is because is the opener, but who cares, is good anyway). And if they could somehow cut them like they made with Suicide from Reign of Fear, Wild Seed and Waiting for the moon could be placed among the best songs of this era (because only the main riffs and the choruses are the highlights of both songs). But even so, they wouldn't be able to harmonize with songs of the previous records (this can be applied to almost every song, even Saddle The Wind). That doesn't have changed absolutely is the voice and harmonies of Peavy Wagner: those are still like planned to raise the most depressed person to a state of maximum happiness.

In conclusion, an album that pretended to be the logical follow-up of a mature but fresh album like Secrets on a weird world doesn't achieve its aim and the result is one of the most boring albums in Rage discography. Rage knew that the formula was not going to give them the success they ever wanted, and they would think that it would be better to get back some elements of their music showed in the first three albums when recording Trapped. And it worked for sure.

This is probably Rage's most accessible album. They had been under pressure to create a commercially successful album by Noise Records, and came up with something that sounded like Perfect Man mixed with Keeper of the Seven Keys Part II.

The songs, for the most part, work. They finally manage to write long songs that don't get boring - managing to figure out that six or seven minutes is enough. There's also a few speed metal numbers here to round things out.

Highlights: "That's Human Bondage" opens the album - midpaced but generally heavy. "Can't Get Out", "Saddle the Wind", and "Nobody Knows" are the speed metal songs, and both are done very well. The rest is also pretty good, including the ballad "Flowers that Fade in my Hand", which is the longest track here. "True Face of Everyone" has a very memorable chorus that's typical of Rage.

There are two bonus tracks on some rerelease that I have never heard. So don't ask me about them. This album definitely is one of Rage's best, and is highly recommended.