Running Wild

New Running Wild album in October :)

RUNNING WILD To Release 'Blood On Blood' Album In October

"Blood On Blood" track listing:

01. Blood On Blood (4:07)
02. Wings Of Fire (3:57)
03. Say Your Prayers (5:14)
04. Diamonds & Pearls (4:44)
05. Wild & Free (5:28)
06. Crossing The Blades 6:00)
07. One Night, One Day (4:59)
08. The Shellback (6:11)
09. Wild, Wild Nights (4:30)
10. The Iron Times (1618 – 1648) (10:29)

Lineup:

Rock N' Rolf - guitar, vocals
Peter Jordan - guitar
Ole Hempelmann - bass
Michael Wolpers - drums


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Niall Kielt said:

Decent tune, be great live. Hoping they announce an Irish date but I will certainly travel if I have to. Pretty sure they will be at Bloodstock in England but a sweaty club gig would suit me better.
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Nice song. It is good to hear the band sound exactly the same as they did 30 years ago!
 
GhostofCain said:
Nice song. It is good to hear the band sound exactly the same as they did 30 years ago!
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Minus the good production, minus the power and minus the fury, but yeah.

I admit I may be a bit biased, as Running Wild are from my hometown, so they always may have had some bonus when I listen to them. Then again, Helloween are from my hometown too, and I never cared much about them.

Speaking about german power metal, RW were always the best band to me. Blind Guardian may have been close, but everyone else played second fiddle to RW, especially in the 90s.
If you are mean, you could argue hat Running Wild only ever wrote 2 songs: the pirate song and the Judas Priest worship song, and then rewrote them over and over again. You would not be wrong. But they pulled it off so well,that they filled a whole decade with great tracks. Between Under Jolly Roger and Masquerade all albums were killer.
Black Hand Inn was their absolute peak, with every song being an instant classic smash hit.
After Masquerade, things went downhill, although every album until the breakup still had some good songs here and there. Production went down to demo level, songs started to get dull, Rolf lost lots of credibility with that Angelo Sasso cringe. When they finally broke up, I saluted them goodbye and thought it was the right thing to do.

However, the reunion was a mistake. The first 2 post reunion albums were pure amateur shit, laughable when compared to Black Hand Inn. It got a little better then, but overall I would have preferred that they justbremained split up and in good memory.
 
Eddie's Uncle said:
Black Hand Inn was their absolute peak, with every song being an instant classic smash hit.
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Pile of Skulls for me, but Black Hand Inn is close. The Brotherhood has a series of bangers too (I actually rank it above the post-BHI trilogy).

I put together a best-of playlist of their discography recently. For Masquerade - Rivalry - Victory - The Brotherhood - Rogues en Vogue I picked:
  • Lions of the Sea
  • The Rivalry
  • Adventure Galley
  • The Ballad of William Kidd
  • The Final Waltz
  • Tsar (aka the Mother Russia tribute, but might be the best song in the trilogy)
  • The Brotherhood
  • Siberian Winter
  • Pirate Song
  • The Ghost
  • Rogues en Vogue
  • The War (underrated gem)


Yes the post-reunion material is nowhere any good as it used to be, but it's physiological when one and the same guy has been writing the majority of songs since the 1980s. If a reunion had to happen, I would have preferred them to just become a 'play the classics' band, like Twisted Sisters.
One thing Rolf should get at least minimum credit for, is that he still has some voice and has re-learned the songs with the solos. And even if he mostly picks easy-to-play shorters, he made an effort and closed with Treasure Island in this year's tour.
 
Murder of Rue Morgue said:
Pile of Skulls for me, but Black Hand Inn is close. The Brotherhood has a series of bangers too (I actually rank it above the post-BHI trilogy).

I put together a best-of playlist of their discography recently. For Masquerade - Rivalry - Victory - The Brotherhood - Rogues en Vogue I picked:
  • Lions of the Sea
  • The Rivalry
  • Adventure Galley
  • The Ballad of William Kidd
  • The Final Waltz
  • Tsar (aka the Mother Russia tribute, but might be the best song in the trilogy)
  • The Brotherhood
  • Siberian Winter
  • Pirate Song
  • The Ghost
  • Rogues en Vogue
  • The War (underrated gem)


Yes the post-reunion material is nowhere any good as it used to be, but it's physiological when one and the same guy has been writing the majority of songs since the 1980s. If a reunion had to happen, I would have preferred them to just become a 'play the classics' band, like Twisted Sisters.
One thing Rolf should get at least minimum credit for, is that he still has some voice and has re-learned the songs with the solos. And even if he mostly picks easy-to-play shorters, he made an effort and closed with Treasure Island in this year's tour.
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Masqarade has many good songs. And maybe a bit different. Just a bit
 
Murder of Rue Morgue said:
Pile of Skulls for me, but Black Hand Inn is close. The Brotherhood has a series of bangers too (I actually rank it above the post-BHI trilogy).

I put together a best-of playlist of their discography recently. For Masquerade - Rivalry - Victory - The Brotherhood - Rogues en Vogue I picked:
  • Lions of the Sea
  • The Rivalry
  • Adventure Galley
  • The Ballad of William Kidd
  • The Final Waltz
  • Tsar (aka the Mother Russia tribute, but might be the best song in the trilogy)
  • The Brotherhood
  • Siberian Winter
  • Pirate Song
  • The Ghost
  • Rogues en Vogue
  • The War (underrated gem)


Yes the post-reunion material is nowhere any good as it used to be, but it's physiological when one and the same guy has been writing the majority of songs since the 1980s. If a reunion had to happen, I would have preferred them to just become a 'play the classics' band, like Twisted Sisters.
One thing Rolf should get at least minimum credit for, is that he still has some voice and has re-learned the songs with the solos. And even if he mostly picks easy-to-play shorters, he made an effort and closed with Treasure Island in this year's tour.
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What? Are they touring again?
 
Also, I relistened to Black Hand Inn in its entirety, so it's track-by-track time:
  1. The Curse: a very much less interesting intro than Chamber of Lies leads us into the dark mood of the album.
  2. Black Hand Inn: this would have been their best opener BY FAR, had Riding the Storm not been in their discography as well. What a banger. Dark, epic, fast, mercilessly overwhelming. And with Rolf's best solo.
  3. Mr. Deadhead: an upbeat, easy written listening standard of speed metal with a decent chorus. Not particularly interesting, not after the previous song.
  4. Soulless: I know it's generally praised, but I never liked this one. Feels too much like a filler.
  5. The Privateer: another banger. We're in a more melodic territory here, and God what a great pair of solos Thilo Hermann threw in. Especially the second one, reprising the chorus melody.
  6. Fight the Fire of Hate: a very good mid-tempo, with truly a great, great, great coda. The last 30 seconds are magical.
  7. The Phantom of Black Hand Hill: Black Hand Inn pt. 2. Fast, dark, merciless for your both your right hand and voice.
  8. Freewind Rider: same as Soulless.
  9. Powder and Iron: this is what Mr. Deadhead and Freewind Rider failed to be. A fast song, with an epic riff and an epic chorus, a great solo and captivating guitar work. Always loved this one, a hidden gem.
  10. Dragonmen: an unexpected ocarina intro for the fast galloping song that leads to the concluding suite. Almost a darker version of Lead or Gold, here and there. Very good work once again.
  11. Genesis: this is very, very much less good than Treasure Island. This does not mean that it's bad: it has a good chorus and good riff-work. But the song as a whole is definitely too long.
 
Quick ABA (album-by-album) overview:
  1. Gates to Purgatory: this and the following one have little to nothing to do with the rest of their production, lyrics-wise. Best songs probably are the last two: Genghis Khan and Prisoners of Our Time.
  2. Branded and Exiled: probably the less interesting of the classic run. More of the same of the previous.
  3. Under Jolly Roger: this is where things start to get interesting. Under Jolly Roger and Diamonds of the Black Chest are better than anything they had previously released, and they only got better after this.
  4. Port Royal: this is their first really, really good album, from start to finish. Port Royal, Uaschitschun, Final Gates, Conquistadores and Calico Jack are all instant classics.
  5. Death or Glory: Stefan Schwartzmann left and was replaced by another drummer-composer, Ian Finlay, and together Rock 'n' Rolf - Moti - Becker - Finlay formed what might be the band's best line-up. It opens with their best-known hit, Riding the Storm (maybe their best song quality-wise), but the top songs are all in Side B: Marooned, Bad to the Bone, Tortuga Bay, Death or Glory and Battle of Waterloo, not mentioning the B-side Störtebeker.
  6. Blazon Stone: sadly half of the line-up, Moti and Finlay, left the band at the end of the Death or Glory Tour, and were replaced by Axel Morgan and AC. According to Rolf, this is RW's best selling album. Little Bighorn and especially Billy the Kid steal the show.
  7. Pile of Skulls: the first album for which Rolf was virtually in charge of the entire songwriting (only the title track was co-written with Axel, and one bonus track - unreleased until 1999 - with the new bassist Piotr Smuszynski). It's also their peak, IMHO. The intro Chamber of Lies, the melodic mid-tempo Black Wings of Death, the only single Lead or Gold, the uplifting Jennings' Revenge (which could have made for a good second single), and the concluding suite Treasure Island are among the best songs of their entire catalogue.
  8. Black Hand Inn: probably their most 'power' metal album, given the amount of tremolo picking and the more melodic approach of the new guitarist Thilo Hermann. A dark, loosely-concept album about good vs. evil and life and death in the golden years of piracy, the title track, the single The Privateer, Fight the Fire of Hate, The Phantom of Black Hand Hill, the epic speeder Powder and Iron, and Dragonmen are the peaks. I can't say the same for the concluding suite Genesis, tho.
  9. Masquerade: the first chapter in a trilogy that also, sadly, started their decline. Much less inspired than the previous ones, it still has some good songs like Lions of the Sea and in particular Soleil Royal.
  10. The Rivalry: the last album with Jörg Michael on the drums has its best moments in Ballad of William Kidd and the aggressive Adventure Galley. Maybe the title track too, if I'm in a good mood.
  11. Victory: the worst out of the trilogy. It's also their first album to feature a cover in its starting tracklist (The Beatles' Revolution). The best song would be Tsar, but I'd also like to mention the short instrumental The Final Waltz, by Thilo Hermann, who would leave the band after this album.
  12. The Brotherhood: it's nowhere near the old fasts, but it's better than most of the trilogy. It's also woefully remembered for the Angelo Sasso cringe. The title track is an incredible masterpiece. I also mention Pirate Song, the instrumental piece Siberian Winter and the suite The Ghost, which uses some oriental-sounding riffs. Not as good as Treasure Island, but better than Genesis I'd say.
  13. Rogues en Vogue: this would have been a very, very dignified end of career. In general it's better than The Brotherhood as far as songwriting is concerned, but not when it comes to production. The most deserving tracks would be Skeleton Dance, the title track, the ending suite The War, and the bonus track Libertalia. I also want to mention that The Final Jolly Roger had a very good tracklist.
  14. Shadowmaker: the worst album Rolf has ever put out. Period. Me & the Boys deserves mention for how astonishingly horrible it is. Dracula, however, is passable.
  15. Resilient: better than Shadowmaker, not as good as Brotherhood nor ReV. I can mention... Idk, Desert Rose, Bloody Island and the bonus track Payola & Shenanigans.
  16. Rapid Foray: a bit better. Maybe. Black Skies, Red Flag, The Depth of the Sea (Nautilus), and Last of the Mohicans can be saved. Into the West is frankly embarrassing.
  17. Blood on Blood: so, this will remain their last dance. I only remember the ballad and the concluding suite.
 
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