This is Savatage’s fifth release. It came out in ’89 and sees the band expanding their sound with a more progressive edge. The whole album is a concept split into two acts, which just happen to be side 1 and 2. The concept came about after Jon Olivia went to see The Phantom Of The Opera on Broadway and was so inspired he immediately on his return wrote the music to the title track.
A superb collection of the operatic mixed with the metallic, this was (at the time) quite a groundbreaking record, from a metal band anyway. This copy is a reissue with a bonus 10-inch record containing Thorazine Shuffle and a Iive version of When The Crowds Are Gone. It’s hard to listen to this without listening to the whole thing as it doesn’t fit if you dip in to a random tune. My favourite segment (shall we say) is She’s In Love. It’s a more traditional metal part of the opera with an absolute monster riff and groove, this track just pounds along. Act 2 has more of the heavier moments, but taken as whole this an ambitious piece of work and still sounds great today.
9/10 from The Grooveman.
