Saxon

So about a month ago I ended up going on a work trip to London, saw Priest and Saxon because it aligned perfectly. Essentially hadn't heard of them at all and was blown away by their performance, they earned a fan that night. Since then I've heard the The Eagle Had Landed, Power & Glory, Denim & Leather, Crusader, Wheels Of Steel, Strong Arm Of The Law, Hell, Fire And Damnation, and Heavy Metal Thunder albums.

What do people recommend as the next steps to take in their massive discography.
 
The Dissident said:
So about a month ago I ended up going on a work trip to London, saw Priest and Saxon because it aligned perfectly. Essentially hadn't heard of them at all and was blown away by their performance, they earned a fan that night. Since then I've heard the The Eagle Had Landed, Power & Glory, Denim & Leather, Crusader, Wheels Of Steel, Strong Arm Of The Law, Hell, Fire And Damnation, and Heavy Metal Thunder albums.

What do people recommend as the next steps to take in their massive discography.
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I would recommend trying more from each decade. Innocence is No Excuse (1985), Solid Ball of Rock (1991), Unleash the Beast (1997), Lionheart (2004), Sacrifice (2013), and Thunderbolt (2018). There is some good variety amongst those albums. However, there are good songs on ALL their studio albums, in my opinion.
 
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The Dissident said:
So about a month ago I ended up going on a work trip to London, saw Priest and Saxon because it aligned perfectly. Essentially hadn't heard of them at all and was blown away by their performance, they earned a fan that night. Since then I've heard the The Eagle Had Landed, Power & Glory, Denim & Leather, Crusader, Wheels Of Steel, Strong Arm Of The Law, Hell, Fire And Damnation, and Heavy Metal Thunder albums.

What do people recommend as the next steps to take in their massive discography.
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Whilst I love the 80’s albums, even the much maligned albums like Destiny and Rock the Nations, personally my favourite period of Saxon is late 90’s until now.

I would recommend to anyone to start with Unleash the beast which is a superb album and then just work your way through each album release after that. Personal favourites are Metalhead, Killing Ground, Lionheart and battering Ram.

Once you’ve got through all these albums then I’d dip back in the 80’s. Sound like you already have the classic 80’s albums so you should start with innocence is no excuse and work your way through the albums up to Unleash the beast.

In my opinion Saxon don’t have any truly stinker albums but, their style does change a lot over the years and some people prefer certain periods of their career and despise others. From the debut up until Power and the glory they were a straightforward British heavy metal band with a style and songs that would put them in the pack with Priest and Maiden. Then they tried to crack America and Starting with innocence is on excuse they added a lot more pop melody to their sound and their albums started to sound like twisted sister mixed with motley crue. They came back to a more straightforward harder rock sound on solid ball of Rock in the 90’s and kept this going for the next few albums until in 1997 they released Unleashed the beast. A thumping Heavy Metal platter full of awesome songs. They went heavy and much more metal than they had ever been and have kept this style up ever since.

Hope that helps and have fun discovering the catalogue of a fantastic heavy metal band.
 
Lionheart I view as an EXCELLENT traditional heavy metal meets EU styled power metal album. It even has Jörg Michael on drums! I don’t listen to a ton of Saxon anymore, but my favorite album from them now has got to be Innocence is No Excuse. For that album they really perfected their more commercial styled hard rock sound. Just an amazing 80’s sounding album with KILLER melodies. Call of the Wild rules, I also recommend Devil Rides Out.

Other albums I remember liking a lot: Call to Arms from 2011, obviously the trio of Wheels, Strong Arm of the Law, and Denim and Leather, The Inner Sanctum from 2007, and the “comeback” album Dogs of War from the mid 90's. Killing Ground is quite good too.

You know, I dog on Saxon a lot, but when I sit down and look at all their albums, they've stayed consistent and released very solid material throughout the years.
 
Inspired very much so by @The Dissident getting into Saxon in the band's 46th year of operation, I decided to go back to some albums I disregarded when first going through Saxon's discography. Turns out I picked a good album to start with!

Into the Labyrinth (2009)

Into_the_Labyrinth_%28Saxon_album%29.jpg


I hadn't listened to this front to back in close to 8 years. I remember specifically not liking Valley of the Kings (more on that one later) which was the big "hit" off this one. Re-listening to it, this albums borders on amazing or great but mostly settles into the good category. The opener Battalions of Steel is AMAZING! I can't believe I hadn't been listening to this album for so long. Battalions of Steel is one of their power metal leaning songs, and the keyboards that stay with it throughout its runtime is such an excellent touch. Quick note: I wish the drums were just a touch louder in this song, but it doesn't really bother me.

Biff sounds good on this, you can tell maybe there's a little digital manipulation to make him sound a bit better or younger, but it's not egregious. Valley of the Kings is a pretty great track. I think there's actually a clear Iron Maiden influence in that "darker" part of the song, especially in the solo. Couple other standouts: Demon Sweeney Todd, pretty dark and heavy cut. Protect Yourselves, that riff I know from somewhere but that groove is pretty tight. Voice, Come Rock of Ages, and Coming Home are pretty nice as well.

There's some real stinkers on this one though (they can't all be good I guess). Live to Rock, Slow Lane Blues, and Crime of Passion are among some of Saxon's worst. Crime of Passion especially reeks. There's certain bands I like that do songs about sex well, and Saxon is firmly at the bottom of that list. Which, I guess Biff never claimed to be a sex icon or anything.

Pretty great album, pretty firmly in that territory of older traditional heavy metal meets power metal. I like that a lot of the songs are uptempo on here! Best song here has got to be Battalions of Steel. Next up I am working through Forever Free from 1992.
 
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Update:

I've made my way halfway through the studio albums. Thus far I've listened to:
Wheels Of Steel, Strong Arm Of The Law, Denim and Leather, Power and The Glory, Crusader, Innocence Is No Excuse, Dogs Of War, Unleash The Beast, Killing Floor, Lionheart, Sacrifice, Hell, Fire and Damnation, plus Heavy Metal Thunder (Studio and Live), The Eagle Has Landed

Overall I'm still amazed at the general quality of the albums, currently I'd put the bolded albums at the highest. My most replayed songs currently are: 747 (Strangers In The Night), Dallas 1PM, Crusader, Hold On, Denim And Leather, Princess of the Night and Madam Guillotine. I look forward to the 2nd half of their studio albums. I prefer most of the Heavy Metal Thunder versions to the originals but I also heard them first in many cases.
 
Very interesting you prefer the Heavy Metal Thunder versions to the originals. It makes sense though as you had heard those versions first. Those are good re-recordings. Glad you liked Lionheart so much. It’s still underrated to this day. Also Strong Arm of the Law was my favorite when I first got into them, it’s quite good and probably the peak of their original run of popularity.

I think you will very much enjoy The Inner Sanctum and Into the Labyrinth. The Inner Sanctum is pretty much a straight continuation of their sound on Lionheart. Metalhead is quite good too and sounds pretty similar to Killing Ground and Unleash the Beast.
 
DJ James said:
Into the Labyrinth (2009)

There's some really stinkers on this one though (they can't all be good I guess). Live to Rock, [...] are among some of Saxon's worst.
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Seriously ? :blink: I always considered that this is one of their best songs of the decade when the band released their worst albums ('Killing Ground', 'Into The Labyrinth', 'The Inner Sanctum', 'Call To Arms'). :rolleyes: At least, this one gave me a lot of energy when I listened to it. :cool: Because it's fun, because it's groovy, because it's powerful and heavy, and for me, that's enough to make a great song. :ninja:
 
If I can say one positive about it - I was expecting the chorus to be “Live to Rock… Rock to Live!” and thankfully it wasn’t. Saxon has some OK songs about rocking, but I personally don’t enjoy Live to Rock.
 
DJ James said:
Wow, that one does rock, I think I’ll check out Killing Ground next as well. The title track from the album rules too
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Killing Ground is a bit hit and miss for me, but the cover of ‘In the court of the crimson king’ is very good and ‘Dragons Lair’ rattles along with lots of Dio type energy. Title track is just immense.
 
TheMercenary said:
Seriously ? :blink: I always considered that this is one of their best songs of the decade when the band released their worst albums ('Killing Ground', 'Into The Labyrinth', 'The Inner Sanctum', 'Call To Arms'). :rolleyes:
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I think this is an interesting take, I've often seen people mention the 00s as a comeback period for the band after the disappointing late 80s and 90s eras. I can't really comment on that as I've heard only some of those albums here and there.

By the way, Batallions of Steel is absolutely one of their top tracks.
 
I've been listening to more Saxon recently. I'm committed to relistening to all their albums, but I'm starting with the ones I don't remember too much from. So far I've relistened to Into the Labyrinth, Forever Free, Killing Ground, Sacrifice, and Solid Ball of Rock.

Forever Free has actually been my favorite so far. Excellent guitar driven commercial hard rock. These riffs seriously kill!


This is my favorite Saxon song right now, and maybe their most underappreciated. I LOVE this sound on this album. Sounds a little like Skid Row or any other harder edged "glam" or "hair" band from the time (LA Guns or Firehouse comes to mind).

Sacrifice was another huge surprise. From the opening notes of that album I thought "Andy Sneap has got to be behind this" and well guess what. Sacrifice is probably their most true sounding "power" metal album. The first side of this album rules. I actually don't think there's a single bad song here. Guardians of the Tomb is very quietly the best power metal song they've ever done. Made in Belfast has a lot of creative stuff going on and there's some gems in the bonus content on this album. Sacrifice is very much so worth a listen if you have not heard it.

Solid Ball of Rock and Killing Ground were varying levels of "meh". I was excited to listen to Solid Ball of Rock because I thought it was going to sound similar to Forever Free, but it was mostly bland and forgettable. TONS of filler on that album. Altar of the Gods, Baptism of Fire and Crash Dive I liked a lot though. Saxon is good for one AMAZING song per album and the title track to Solid Ball of Rock is that song here.

Speaking of which, Killing Ground was majorly boring. I'd take Solid Ball of Rock over it mostly because I prefer a boring hard rock sounding Saxon album over this version of Saxon on Killing Ground. Title track is good though. Dragon's Lair, the King Crimson cover, Running For the Border and Rock is Our Life are all decent too.
 
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