Lingua Mortis

Though trips to the symphonic well would become more common in the band's later years, Lingua Mortis was kind of a novelty at its release in the 90s and marked a potential new direction for a band that was likely already looking for some new tricks. In fact, the very idea of hiring some orchestra musicians for a heavy metal studio recording alongside a band that was hardly a household name was pretty new in general. You had a handful of acts like Therion who were already exploring this ground, but for a longstanding power/speed metal act like this one it was fresh territory. However, considering that Rage already incorporated some violins, contrabass and cello on certain Black in Mind tracks the year prior, one would hardly consider it a surprise, more of a statement that 'this is happening' and the band wanted to explore this side of their influences without being dragged down by the 'metal first' component...

...and yet, the metal is still present, in a somewhat slovenly and subdued way, meaning that the bulk of it is just used to prop up some of the darkness and moodiness within these converted tracks. Lingua Mortis is somewhat of a raw recording, in that the band's core rock instruments and Wagner's vocals don't sound so seamless alongside the orchestration. The guitars for "In a Nameless Time", for example, are a bit rough if you're going into this with some expectation of high studio gloss, but if you're more interested in how it all comes across live, they're adequate. Wagner's vocals, while largely on point with the 90s studio output, can also get a little too grimy, especially when he's sustaining a lower, angrier tone, and there a couple lines where he almost seems to fall on his face. It's almost a shame that they didn't just keep the whole affair instrumental, maybe keep the guitars, bass and rock drums and have more of Peavy's vocals be interpreted by a choir, because where this works best is as an atmospheric, eerie overture of cuts like the aforementioned "In a Nameless Time" or "Alive but Dead", the latter of which just doesn't sound that great with him adding in the singing alongside the pianos and whatnot...it almost sounds like someone is playing the music on a tape recorder while the conductor does his thing.

One of the other centerpieces here is a "Medley" which includes snippets of tracks like "Black in Mind" and "Sent by the Devil", recorded similar to the previous tracks with the orchestra and band in check, and then around these are arranged little vignettes like a purely symphonic moment of "Don't Fear the Winter" or "Firestorm". This is a giant mess, I can understand the idea being that with a limited amount of budget they can't really get a lot of hits onto this, but I'd have rather they let one or two of those smaller bits be played out in full. Again, the idea of MERGING these two forms here just hasn't hit its peak potential and that really drags down the effort as a whole. I actually like the orchestra side of this one quite a lot, but then the quartet of Peavy, Seven, Spiros and Chris sort of steps in its own ambition and gets its boots muddied. Not a total write-off, of course, because this is a learning step for how they'd work rather well within the medium in the future, and eventually and briefly spin it off into its own entity, but this one remains a curiosity for me more than anything else.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

There comes a time when a Heavy Metal band decides that an album full of their compositions played by a classical orchestra is a good idea. Sometimes they're right (Deep Purple/Yngwie), and sometimes they're wrong (Metallica). If a band can nail all their classics and can have the symphony sound natural instead of just having it there for the sake of a symphony, then the result is fucking great; fortunately, for Rage, this was a good idea.

In this album Rage plays with the Prague symphonic orchestra, and they manage to make it sound as if they had actually composed the songs right there with the symphony, it just flows! However, Rage is not the kind of bands you'd expect this kind of albums from, hell, they had just released Black in Mind, and before that, The Missing Link, and so on in a long line of Speed/Thrash classics. Thrash is not a genre that goes well with a symphony, but Rage's choice of songs and the way they're executed proves that concept wrong.

Every track here is good, though the remake of 'All This Time' isn't very spectacular; sorry, but I can't give it a 95 now. Oh but that doesn't matter, we begin with 'In a Nameless Time', which starts with this little drum/percussion intro, and starts building until the guitars come in, Peavy is an awesome singer, and he has you singing along -or- humming to it, and it goes all 11 minutes without getting boring, and the symphony complements everything perfectly.

'Alive But Dead' is short, sadly. But that chorus is too good! "Still I'm alive, but I must be dead!", ohh man, and the little string leads, along with the subtle piano below the solos, everything accented by an oboe, AND over the drums, which is an awesome way of doing symphonic rock; having classical instruments over a drum beat, all of that without drowning the guitar riffs, though you gotta put some attention to them. Then there's that guitar solo which comes out of fucking nowhere, and the symphony goes with it perfectly.

Is that 'Don't Fear the Winter'? I think it's a piano...Oh shit! Strings! Fuck! A whole symphony now! That first minute alone puts WASP's 'Thunderhead' to shame, and that's saying a lot! Then a perfect mixture of guitar and strings over Black in Mind, and you're already singing along to it, a piano melody this way, the percussions accenting the drums other way, and the strings harmonizing Peavy's voice. After that, a piano solo which starts playing some melodies off 'Firestorm', and it starts building up, and up, and up, and then---SENT BY THE DEVIL! Shit I don't know how did this guys managed to inyect so much feeling into this, probably a deal with the devil (pun intended) or something. 'Sent By the Devil' is mostly a rocker, in the sense that it's dominated by guitar and drums, though you can hear the symphony backing behind at times.

When 'Sent By the Devil' finishes, another piano solo comes in, which proceeds the way 'Firestorm' did, building up slowly. If the Medley had ended up here and just faded out, it would be a good song, but what makes this Medley so special, is that 'Lost in the Devil' keeps getting intense until...OHMYFUCKINGGODWHEREDIDTHATCOMEFROM guitar solo at 12:03 kicks in. THAT, my friends, is the best guitar solo ever written (it was probably improvised, but who gives a shit, it would make it even more genius). You can air guitar to it, hum to it, headbang, do whatever the fuck you want, but that's just awesome, and the symphony backs it up while the guitar plays more leads, and it goes for 3 and a half minutes, fading away, yet never stopping to breath, artificial harmonics, more speed licks, and the brooding strings' melody behind.

So when that ends, you have 'All This Time', sorry, but it just cant compete against the Medley. Maybe if they had put it behind...

You have to get this, I don't know how, but get it; it's the best 'metal-meets-symphony' album and in the way best Symphonic Metal album I've heard. Just listen to it, and you'll understand.