Despite their nearly thirty-year career (beginning in 1984 under the name Avenger), Rage has only rarely crossed my radar before now. I have a few tracks of theirs on compilations, most notably the old Doomsday News disc that Noise Records dropped back around 1990, but beyond that, I’ve never been exposed to much of their thrashing power metal. And that’s kind of a shame, since Strings To A Web has some enjoyable moments, although overall, this one’s far from a year-end best-of list entry. Similar to fellow Germans Grave Digger, Rage soldiers on into their third decade, still releasing melodic and bombastic old-school metal. Strings is divided into two distinct pieces, drawn into thirds rather than down the middle—two-thirds of it rocks, and the other third attempts some greater level of symphonic musicality and comes up a hair short.
In all these many years, the band’s only constant member has been bassist / vocalist Peter “Peavy” Wagner, whose throaty and blustery voice helps anchor the band in a grittier realm than many of their slicker power metal peers. With a voice not as shrill or guttural as that of Grave Digger‘s Chris Boltendahl, Wagner avoids stratospheric highs or any kind of growl or scream, and that’s all for the best as the absence of the former lends Rage‘s work a leathery gutsy bravado that many power metal acts lack whilst the absence of the latter avoids the potential landmines of failed stabs at modern extremity. Guitarist Victor Smolski is a shredder par excellance, although his lightning-fast approach and his processed tone also both irrevocably date this to the glorious metallic days gone by.
The album opens strong, with four thrashing catchy-as-hell tunes in a row – “The Edge Of Darkness,” “Hunter And Prey,” “Into The Light,” The Beggar’s Last Dime” –- four tracks that feature all of Rage’s strongest points. These tunes are exactly what one expects from vintage European power metal — trad-metal riffing, speedy and flashy, with soaring sing-along choruses that feel neither forced nor too syrupy sweet. But then, things change: Strings’ centerpiece (quite literally) is the five-song suite that begins with “Empty Hollow” and ends in “Empty Hollow (Reprise).” The initial “Hollow” marks the album’s first forays into the symphonic styling with which Rage has flirted for years, its orchestral opening segueing into the song’s main body, which is a driving rocker akin to the opening four. “Hollow” then drops straight into the interesting-but-disposable nearly-jazz-fusion instrumental title track, piano-laden and rife with Smokin’ Smolski’s shredding, and then it’s back to the symphonics with the short piano / viola piece “Fatal Grace,” which in turn drops into “Connected,” a keyboard-padded, midtempo piece that, with its groove and sparse clean arpeggios, feels like Joe Lynn Turner-era Rainbow. After “Empty Hollow (Reprise)” signals the end of the symphonic arrangements, the record switches gears back to the front, through another pair of thrashy rockers in “Saviour Of The Dead” and “Hellgirl” and then the whole affair promptly loses steam in the toss-off ballad “Through Ages” and “Tomorrow Never Comes.”
As I mentioned, I can’t really compare Strings to any of Rage‘s prior full-lengths, recent or otherwise, so I can’t say where it falls in the spectrum of their canon. But I can comment upon it taken individually. While all of this is coated in the trademark glossy goofiness of Germanic power metal, when it’s done well, it’s appropriately well-done, and even at its most silly, the sheer energy and catchiness is undeniable. Perhaps it’s not the band’s best, and it is disjointed in its sudden mid-album switch towards the symphonic, but nonetheless, Strings has enough moments of glory to make it a worthy investment for fans of epic, driving German speed metal.
