As part of the Intense Millennium remasters Chicago Metal Act Sacred Warrior is on the list. Their debut album entitled Rebellion is a full on metal tour de force. With stellar guitars solos, exceptional drumming and the powerful voice of Rey Parra, this is a combo that is pretty hard to get around.
Sacred Warrior plays a brand of heavy metal with melody not unlike Queensryche, Helloween or even Stratovarius; heavy guitars with soaring vocals that are extremely distinctive. Bruce Swift plays his heart out on his six string instrument. Picking notes out of the air and playing a myriad of riffs that are more memorable than noteworthy.
Opening with the track Black Metal screaming through Stay Away from Evil flying hard on Children of the Light pummeling their way through Day of the Lord, Sacred Warriors debut album was a tough one to surpass. Even the all out driving The Heavens are Calling with its buzz saw riff has enough melody to grab even the most ardent AOR fan.
Rebellion is clean and powerful, full of anthems that anyone who claims Christ as Savior will be singing along with. Messages of hope, redemption and more importantly understanding are found through out this piece of metal history.
This album was originally released in 1988 with the recording limitations of the time. However, let it be known that the remastering done by J Powell at Steinhaus allows the recording to not only breathe but SHINE. The new mastering brings the guitars out and adds clarity to everything. There are several subtle keyboard parts that I frankly didn’t even know they were there. The drumming of Tony Velasquez was superb but now is truly stellar due to the clarity and spacing given. I hear a ride cymbal (he was hitting the bell) in the title track that I simply couldn’t hear before.
This reissue includes two bonus tracks Day By Day and Prince of Peace, the former a straight up rock tune while the later is definitely along the lines of a praise tune. Pastor Bob Beeman provides some extended liner notes and commentary. New album artwork is provided as well, however if you old schoolers insist on the original simply turn the booklet around and post the old artwork on the front.
Intense Millennium has done it again with an outstanding reissue that is worth every penny of your hard earned cash. Not every reissue is a classic album, but Sacred Warriors Rebellion is. This release has stood the test of time and has earned the title of classic due to its passion and desire to offer a superior product to the world so that the gospel of Jesus Christ can be heard by all in their own language. In this case that language is Heavy Metal music.
10 axes.
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3 comments:
Rick Macias was actually the keyboard player, and Tony Velasquez was the drummer, and a powerhouse one at that! Had to make sure respect was given, accordingly.
~Knightwingz
You're absolutely right.... How I made that mistake is beyond me.... It shall be corrected.... thanks...
This is a cool review, I am going to show you one I did on VampireFreaks.com. Some might wonder how could I pull off reviewing a band like Sacred Warrior after writing a review for Cradle of Filth. If you want to see this review, drop me a message on my guestbook. I also reviewed a few others too, but this one is the monster of reviews because I knew the guys personally. My review doubled as memorial for Rick because I never had a chance to say goodbye. He died almost exactly two years after my beta reader passed away.
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