Search - Various Artists :: Return of the Mountain King: A Tribute to Savatage (Import)

Obscure bands pay homage to the great Savatage

Murat Batmaz | Istanbul, Turkey | 08/07/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"It's sad that, despite their 25+ career, there has been no satisfactory tribute album to Savatage. I could name at least a dozen bands who have about five or six tribute albums for them but the great Savatage has always been overlooked for some strange reason. There was a talk about Century Media doing a tribute with Nevermore singing "Sirens" and Tad Morose covering "Power of the Night" back a few years ago but nothing came of it. The latter eventually used the track on one of their compilation CDs.



Return of the Mountain King: A Tribute to Savatage was released in 2000 by Progressive Art Music. I own the US version of the CD which features 10 tracks. My copy starts off with Division's "Power of the Night" and ends with Wraith doing "24 Hours Ago". Basically the first five tracks on this version are excluded in the US issue, so I'll only address the relevant bands' performance.



Division is a great band. Their new record Trinity was released only recently and it proves that they are a great American power metal band with tons of potential. They make justice to "Power of the Night" sticking pretty much to the original version. Both the vocals and guitar work is quite reminiscent of Savatage. Cage is relatively more known among these bands. They do a good cover of "The Dingeons are Calling". However one of the most interesting covers on this disc is "Chance" done by Cipher who are a very unknown band to me. In my opinion they are the ones who've picked the most challenging track to cover since they use both clean and death vocals and the counterpoint vocals at the end are simply awesome. A bit different than the original version but it's still a great version -- one of my favourites actually. Mesmerize and Dofka doing the vintage Jon Oliva stuff have reworked the songs in their own way. Honestly I don't think anyone could cover "Sirens" or "Hall of the Mountain King" in its original format. Jon Oliva's singing on those songs is simply wicked. That said, both bands do a good job, especially Dofka. I think Dofka is one of the most underrated thrash bands around. I hope they release a follow-up to their 1990 release soon.



Portrait's version of "Edge of Thorns" is one of the best songs on this disc. It's almost the same as the real version. I really like the singer of this band and the guitar solo rules. Too bad I couldn't find any info on this band either. Civilian offers an interesting version of "Prelude to Madness" doing the only instrumental on the album. Cyrcle IX has picked a very difficult tune to cover since "Believe" is one of the songs that will reveal its full content only if it's sung by Jon Oliva himself. Opposite Earth's "Of Rage and War" is amazing. This was such an awesome band. They only released one album and disappeared. Unfortunately I could never find their album. It's a great prog metal disc. Wraith also sticks with the original version in "24 Hours Ago" and does a fine job indeed.



This is a very cool tribute album. Savatage is my favourite band and I know lots of people who dislike this disc cause it doesn't sound as 'real' as the original stuff, but I'm always interested in hearing other bands' versions. I have no doubt that most of these bands were huge Sava fans themselves and were honoured to take part in this project. And maybe that's all that matters."