Taking great characteristics from the New Wave of British Heavy Metal sound and bringing them to life in 2012 works out well for the British band Savage and their new disc Sons of Malice. Take a dash of (early) Def Leppard, a nice helping of Tygers of Pan Tang and some hard blues ala Whitesnake, give it some modern flavor and you have summed up Savage’s newest rock ‘n’ roll path. Savage was a decent band anyway (the band’s first demo tape goes back to 1980 and their last album was Xtreme Machine in 2001). They are just showing that they can still be relevant after all these years.

Nothing is as fast and furious as Savage’s 1983 classic “Let it Loose” (with a riff similar to Dio’s great “Stand Up and Shout”) but the best of the bunch on Sons of Malice are the faster tempo songs, ones named “Blow,” the opening track “The Rage Within” and “The Hanging Tree.” In fact, a song like “The Hanging Tree” may be too short of a composition. It pulls the plug before it builds up enough hard n’ heavy steam. The brawny vocals of Chris Bradley and the meaty, hard blues guitars of Andy Dawson and Kristian Bradley are a good team and you want to hear them play on.

On Sons of Malice, Savage also take on contemporary concerns of the day, and the rocker “Choose Revolution” could easily be an Occupy Wall Street theme song with its straight-on, defiant lyrics:

We gotta take to the streets, and loose a little mayhem/
World’s getting smaller, running right out of space/
Go tell The Man, we see through the facade/
Where did it all go wrong? We need solutions/
Ain’t got too long, so I choose revolution.

All in all, Savage are a good representation of the NWOBHM era (they are, after all, reportedly a fave of Metallica’s), brought back to life with a better studio production (the album was engineered and mixed by drummer Mark Nelson). Sons of Malice is a good place to start the band’s modern day resurrection.

Label: Minus2Zebra (the album can be purchased here as a CD import or in a MP3 file format)

Contact: www.myspace.com/savageuk