SAXON: Strong Arm Of The Law (MELODIC METAL): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

Rare are the bands that release two studio albums in the same year, and even rarer are those that manage to make them two classics. However, this is what Saxon offers in this year 1980. After the monumental "Wheels Of Steel", the Yorshire gang offers us, with this "Strong Arm Of The Law", a real concentrate of melodic metal, most of the tracks of which have become classics and still regularly appear in their setlist.

It's impossible to catch your breath throughout these eight tracks without a break. Most of the titles offer us the style so particular, that is to say a metal at the border of hard-rock driven at a hellish rhythm. So much so that 'Hungry Years' and its greasy heavy metal resting on a riff directly drawn from the blues and coated with metallic guitars, ends up representing the calmest moment of the album. That's to say that the foot remains on the gas pedal throughout this journey.

'Heavy Metal Thunder' and its stormy intro set the tempo right from the start with what will become a must for the next best of and other live albums of the band. The rest of the tracks are based on an equivalent model, without sinking into a monotonous register. The choruses are unstoppable and the riffs are varied. 'Strong Arm Of The Law' and 'Dallas 1PM', about the assassination of JFK, are based on looped bass riffs that sound like a steamroller, while '20.000 Feet' and its double-pedal bursts at the speed of light to lead to a punchy chorus.

It is interesting to note that behind the unavoidable leader and frontman Biff Byford, Saxon has always had excellent drummers in its ranks. Pete Gill, who will leave his post after this album, is the first to open this tradition behind the drums. The complementarity of the guitarist pair Quinn - Oliver is also one of the characteristics of the band and takes here all its scale with scathing and melodious soli, and riffs become legendary for the majority. Let's not forget the performance of Steve Dawson, whose playing is both round and dynamic, reminding us of a certain Steve Harris (Iron Maiden) at times, as on 'To Hell And Back Again', and who succeeds in both supporting the dynamism offered by the drums and propelling the six-stringers.

"Strong Arm Of The Law" comes to confirm what "Wheels Of Steel" had already highlighted, namely that a legendary band was born. And if Saxon will suffer from some rare hesitations in its discography which will not allow it to reach the status and the notoriety of its compatriots of Iron Maiden, it is however an inescapable album which concentrates in eight titles all the talent, the dynamism, the integrity and the identity of a pillar of the hard rock. - Official website

SAXON

STRONG ARM OF THE LAW

EMI

MELODIC METAL