Year : 2024
Style : Heavy Metal , Speed Metal , Power Metal
Country : Germany
Audio : 320 kbps + all scans
Size : 206 mb
Bio:
Rage is a German heavy metal band, formed in 1984. They were part of the German heavy/speed/power metal scene to emerge in the early to mid-1980s, along with bands such as Helloween, Running Wild, Blind Guardian and Grave Digger.Rage formed in 1984 under the name, Avenger. After releasing their debut album Prayers of Steel and their Depraved to Black EP in 1985, the band changed their name to Rage because there was another band in England that also carried the moniker. Originally the new name was to be Furious Rage but it was eventually shortened to Rage. The first album released under the new name was Reign of Fear in 1986.Rage's albums came out in regular, continuous intervals, and the band began touring with Running Wild, U.D.O., Motörhead and Saxon in the early 1990s.Their 1992 album Trapped! marked their international breakthrough, a short highlight being Rage's tour in Japan. Their success was repeated again in 1993 with the release of The Missing Link. After change in their lineup, Rage went on to record Lingua Mortis, the first classical album by a German metal act, in 1996. Their material was performed live for the first time in late summer 1996 in Kufstein, Austria. Subsequently, Rage, and the orchestra used, embarked on a celebrated Christmas tour and played several European festivals.Their thirteenth album XIII was released in March 1998. The next album Ghosts was followed by a major line-up change, featuring Peavy Wagner, Victor Smolski and Mike Terrana.The trio performed at Wacken Open Air in August 2001, revealing their newest album Welcome to the Other Side. The following releases Unity and Soundchaser were met with enthusiastic response from critics and fans alike. Rage toured with Primal Fear in 2002 and Helloween in 2003.Rage's frontman Peavy Wagner performing a show at Milan, Italy, 13 April 2006 In 2006, Rage reunited with the Lingua Mortis Orchestra again to released the album Speak of the Dead, the last album with Mike Terrana on drums, because he left Rage voluntarily after a disagreement.On 1 January 2007, it was announced that their new drummer would be André Hilgers, formerly the drummer of Axxis.In 2007, the band toured in Europe with a show featuring one symphonic orchestra from Minsk, Belarus under the name "Lingua Mortis Orchestra", and the concert in that August at Wacken Open Air at 80,000 fans was recorded for a DVD to be included as bonus to their new album called Carved in Stone, which was released on 22 February 2008.The band played at Bundesvision Song Contest 2009 (BUVISOCO) on 13 February 2009, the Festival was hosted by Stefan Raab (TV Total).Rage became more famous through their participation in the show, as well as by being placed third.Rage recently celebrated their 25th anniversary with the release of the EP Gib Dich Nie Auf / Never Give Up.Rage entered the studio in October 2011 to begin recording their 21st album for an early 2012 release,
Album:
40 years of being an active band is an achievement few can claim, in this case, Rage has definitely earned their place in this club. Depending on how you count the band's releases (if you include or not the Avenger record in 1984, the Refuge record in 2018 and the LMO featuring Rage record in 2013 and the "10 Years in Rage" record in 1994), this could be Rage's 24th or 28th full-length album. Whichever it is, it's still a very impressive number of records released fairly consistently through the years. This one, however, is a truly special one: Rage's first ever double album. Created with the same lineup as last time minus guitarist Stefan Weber (who, according to Peavy, is still in the band officially but on break for health reasons), will "Afterlifelines" live up to the success of it's predecessor "Resurrection Day"?As mentionned earlier, "Afterlifelines" is a double album, and the album is divided in the "Afterlife" album with standard metal instrumentation and the "Lifelines" record with orchestrations in all songs. The first disc opens up with it's only traces of orchestrations with the intro track "In the Beginning", opening up beautifully with musical themes and melodies very much in line with what's to come on the entire release. The first real song "End of Illusions" however kicks off with one of the thrashiest song on the album with a powerful, shreddy guitar riff courtesy of guitarist Jean Bormann and one of the record's catchiest choruses: Rage definitely continued the tradition of opening a record with one of the strongest songs of the bunch. Not that the rest is weak however; While the first single "Under a Black Crown" is fairly straightforward and slightly less spectacular, it's still a quality song that doesn't deserve to be skipped.One of the first things noticeable about this record is how good the production is, very much in line with it's predecessor's stellar production. In my opinion, the guitar tones are not quite as good as on "Resurrection Day" but it's more a matter of preference on my part. The bass is fairly quiet as is usually the case on a Rage record, even during the drum and bass intro of "Mortal", however Lucky's drums are very punchy and full-sounding. And to be honest, this release features Lucky's best drum performances since his arrival in Rage nearly a decade ago. Jean's guitar parts are tight and interesting throughout the record, however I have a complaint about the guitar's production in some areas of the record. One issue that often comes up during "Afterlifelines" is that the guitars are clearly edited and copy/pasted in certain parts of certain songs, the most evident example of this issue being the transition in between the first title track "Afterlife"'s verses and pre-choruses where there guitar stops entirely for a few micro-seconds, breaking the immersion of the listener at times. However the biggest issue on "Afterlifelines" is the inconsistency of the vocals: as good as they are on songs like "End of Illusions" or "Afterlife", there are parts of songs where they can be a bit hard to listen to such as on the ballad "Dying To Live" or the second title track "Lifelines", though not quite as bad as on 2020's "Wings of Rage". Perhaps the result of spreading too thin on too many songs, considering "Afterlifelines" features 21 tracks? Otherwise, producer Manuel Cohnen's work is very solid.After the simpler but oh so catchy and anthemic "Afterlife", Rage comes in with a surprise with the next three songs "Dead Man's Eyes", "Mortal" and "Toxic Waves" featuring much more modern riffing and influences (possibly from guitarist Bormann?) with guitars downtuned to Drop B and Drop Bb, a rare occurence in Rage's discography. Between the Jungle Rot-style caveman death metal main riff of "Dead Man's Eyes" and the modern metalcore riffing of "Mortal" that wouldn't feel out of place on a Trivium record, the band offers a quite welcome breath of fresh air on this record while still feeling like Rage songs with Peavy's iconic voice. While the rest of the first disc is more in line with Rage's traditional style, the band still manages to offer a few surprises such as the blast beats in "Waterwar"'s intro or the overly familiar and super catchy chorus melody of "Justice Will Be Mine". The first real dud of the double-record comes in the form of "Shadow World" with it's very underwhelming and generic main riff, correcting the course with the final song of the first disc with "Life Among the Ruins", a good song unfortunately overshadows by the sheer quanity of songs on this release.The second part of the record, "Lifelines", starts with the album's 2nd single "Cold Desire" which is also one of the more powerful songs on "Afterlifelines", opening up the second disc with success. However, and perhaps this is a problem plaguing most double albums, there are just so many songs that at some point it's hard to stay focused through the entire hour and a half of "Afterlifelines", and some songs end up being less memorable even though they are still very good songs such as "One World", "It's All Too Much" or "The Flood". A good way to sum up most of the second disc: it's pretty much the exact same style as the first disc but with orchestrations mixed in, instead of being a colection of more dramatic songs like on Rage's classical albums like "XIII" or "Ghosts". There are two standout sections however, the first being the album's third single and first ballad "Dying To Live". While I criticized Peavy's vocals in this song previously, the most problematic vocal parts are found in the second verse of the song: the rest of the song is well performed and the song is still one of the most emotional on this record with an unexpected surprise towards the end. For the first time in Rage's history (as far as I know) there are lead vocals performed by someone else than Peavy, courtesy of guitarist Jean Bormann ending the song in a duet offering a very nice contrast of vocals with Peavy's usual raspy and powerful voice and Jean's cleaner and more emotional vocals.The second highlight of "Lifelines" is, well, "Lifelines". Or, "Lifelines" through "Interlude" and "In The End", as they were originally planned to be a single song but had to be split up due to songwriting rights (probably due to "Interlude") adding up to a total of around 16 minutes of music. "Lifelines" begins as this beaufiful, moody and dark orchestral song but quickly introduces one of Rage's heaviest riffs before turning back into it's moody vibe with clean guitars that are... weirdly out of tune? There's this G# guitar string that keeps annoyingly ringing out of tune during the verses. Paired with Peavy's shaky vocal delivery in this song, it makes for an unfortunately disappointing performance for the album epic. A shame, because the main chorus is extremely dramatically catchy, and all the twist and turns the song takes through it's second half make for a very interesting track, bringing back the main riff and chorus parts of the first title track "Afterlife" towards the end tying the double record neatly together. The song transitions into it's next part "Interlude" that is exaclty this, an interlude featuring only orchestration but full of callbacks to older Rage songs, such as "XIII"'s "Overture" and "From the Craddle To the Grave" making it an exciting piece of music for Rage superfans, before heading into the final song "In the End" and closing the album in a beautiful and emotional, almost nostalgic way.In the end, "Afterlifelines" is such a massive record full of great songs that is unfortunately hindered by it's own size. Perhaps the albums should have been worked on at seperate times for the sake of consistency for the vocal performances, and to give every song a chance to breathe and shine. However, it is still a very solid Rage record with songs that became among my favorite of the band's whole discography.
Line Up:
Peter "Peavy" Wagner - Bass (1983-1985), Vocals (1983-1985) - See also: Lingua Mortis Orchestra, Rage, ex-Bassinvaders, Refuge, ex-Mekong Delta, ex-X-Mas Project, ex-Der Riß
Jean Bormann - Guitar
Vassilios "Lucky" Maniatopoulos - Drums
Tracklist:
CD1 - Afterlife
01. In the Beginning 01:31
02. End of Illusions 03:48
03. Under a Black Crown 04:00
04. Afterlife 03:45
05. Dead Man's Eyes 03:24
06. Mortal 04:04
07. Toxic Waves 03:36
08. Waterwar 03:42
09. Justice Will Be Mine 04:35
10. Shadow World 03:22
11. Life Among the Ruins 04:06
CD2 - Lifelines
01. Cold Desire 03:59
02. Root of Our Evil 04:02
03. Curse the Night 03:34
04. One World 04:24
05. It's All Too Much 05:11
06. Dying to Live 04:51
07. The Flood 03:56
08. Lifelines 09:54
09. Interlude 02:43
10. In the End 03:23
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