Edge of Thorns 1993

"The last album to feature Criss Oliva's amazing guitar work, "Edge of Thorns" is a bittersweet experience to many. The sweetness part, of course, consists in the music being awesome across the board, while the bitterness part consists in the reminder that Criss Oliva died the same year that this album was released.

He was killed by a drunk driver. Yet another reason to hate those fucking bastards who drive while drunk!

As mentioned, the guitar work is amazing. The riffs are solid, and the guitar solos blazing. While drawing more on traditional heavy metal and less progressive and powerful than other Savatage releases, the song structures are quite dynamic in terms of moods and use of distortion versus clean guitars and inserted piano passages. New vocalist Zachary Stevens' singing is not as mad and frenzied as that of Jon Oliva', who would take a backseat position for a couple of years, but his voice is more versatile and has a sort of AOR-quality to it (he even sounds like Jon Bon Jovi at times).

The album is quite varied in terms of musical expression and never gets uninteresting. It does have a more melodic AOR feel to it, I think, than the band's earlier releases, but it still is a very expressive release, which stresses that metal music is an art.

(review originally posted at metalmusicarchives.com)"