Poets & Madmen

Savatage | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 17, 2001)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Nuclear Blast Americ
• ASIN: B00005AWK6
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #71,785 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. There In The Silence

2. Commissar

3. I Seek Power. I Seek Power

4. Drive

5. Morphine Child

6. Rumor, The

7. Man In The Mirror

8. Surrender

9. Awaken

10. Back To Reason

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Aside from a loyal cadre of fanatics, the record-buying public has not been kind to this long-running band's mountain of concept albums. The formula of pomp and pretense sours somewhere between the loftiness of its conception and the bare tediousness of its execution. While potentially as fun as Alice Cooper or Queen, the story-rock of Savatage is forced into a tight metal funnel that squeezes much of the joy out of the proceedings. Then again, the driving gait of "Commissar" and the 10-minute "Morphine Child" don't invite anything but the most dire and maudlin interpretation. Somewhere in here there is magnificence, but it may be too tightly wound to unravel. This album marks the return to the microphone of bandleader Jon Oliva, who drove Savatage to great power-metal heights during the 1980s, and he brings his honesty, but not his former energy. --Ian Christe

Product Description

Eagerly anticipated new album combines the classic sound of earlier albums like Sirens, Hall Of The Mountain King and the EP Dungeons Are Calling, while remaining faithful to the orchestral direction of more recent releases, Gutter Ballet and Dead Winter Dead, which they owe to a large extent to returning producer Paul O'Neill (Aerosmith). Featuring guitarist Al Pitrelli and founding member Jon Oliva. Poets & Madmen is a concept album which follows three kids who unwittingly break into a closed-down psychiatric hospitalwhere they discover a cabinet with old patients' files. 12 tracks. 2001 release.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best there is, April 22, 2003

By 

Ryan Seek "trans-siberian_outcast" (Maricopa, AZ United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Poets & Madmen (Audio CD)

I am shocked at how many negative reviews there are on this album. I almost have to wonder if someone doesn't hold a grudge against Savatage and is fabricating all these critical comments of an album that is first-rate. But even the Amazon.com "Editorial" review throws out false accusations of this album being a "tight metal funnel that squeezes much of the joy out of the proceedings". I don't know what this guy was smoking (or not smoking as the case may be), but he couldn't be any further off-base.

Folks, this album is an incredibly complex arrangement of crunching guitar riffs, dancing keyboards, and vocal melodies that range from haunting to downright angry. Of course, due to its complexity, it takes a few listens at high volume before you actually start grasping how much is going on with this masterpiece. I am assuming that the negative reviews of this album come from people who failed to give this disc the few extra spins necessary, and not from people whose heads are so far in their holes that all they can hear is their hollow heartbeat.

While touting itself as a concept album (which its not), this album in less like Dead Winter Dead and Wake of Magellan than it is to Mountain King and Gutter Ballet, although the songwriting is much more mature and production is excellent. This album delivers hard and heavy in the 80's style of grooving riffs, hooks, and melodies. I love all Savatage, but when I have the irresistable urge to let my hair fly and strain my neck muscles, this is the first disc to land in my CD tray.

Poets and Madmen is not speed metal, or thrash metal or any of the other sub-category of the genre. It is just straightforward heavy metal, well-written, well-produced, and well-played...at least in my hallowed halls.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Savatage Raises The Concept Album To New Heights Again!, April 10, 2001

By 

Mary Ellen Gustafson "horror fan" (AZ, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Poets & Madmen (Audio CD)

With their latest concept album, "Savatage" again approaches a socially conscious subject, but this one is done in a more unusual manner. The "story within the story" centers on a Pulitzer Prize winning photographer and a photo he took of a four-year-old girl in the Sudan. Her family was caught up in a man-made famine and they were walking 30 miles to a feeding station. During the journey, all her family members have died and she struggles through the last miles alone. When the child reaches the feeding station she's told the food is gone. Exhausted and alone the girl collapses in a squatting fetal position, a vulture sitting beside her waiting for her to die. This is the photo that won the Pulitzer Prize, but it slowly drove the photographer into the depths of depression, contemplating suicide and landing him in a mental institution. This is where the actual story begins.

Three teens break into what is supposed to be an abandoned and haunted mental institution, but find they are not alone. They see a figure in the corridor ahead of them and follow it to a closed and locked steel door after the figure steals the jacket of the teen with the car keys and his cigarettes and lighter. When they reach the door they find the jacket neatly folded outside with the keys, lighter and box of cigarettes with one missing from the pack. They can see the figure through the window in the door holding the unlit cigarette. The owner of the smokes slides his lighter under the door, the figure lights the cigarette and slides the lighter back. This is when the teens see a chart beside the door and discover the history of the photographer inside the room. You'll have to buy the album to see how the story comes out!

Anyone familiar with Savatage and their concept albums is already aware that these albums tell a story. The lyrics and music portray different parts of the story and liner notes become a very important part of the listening process. As the story advances, narration not on the album is printed between the lyrics to the songs and the combination carry the story line.

This album relies heavily on guitar work that is really outstanding. Although guitarist Al Pitrelli has since left to join Megadeth, he was still with the band when the album was recorded. The dual guitars of Pitrelli and Chris Caffrey drive this album from beginning to end. Jon Oliva, founder of "Savatage," carries the vocals on this album.

There is a very definite ominous sound to most of the songs on the album, and you can totally picture this abandoned building in the middle of nowhere haunted by the ghosts of its former inhabitants. Then there's the one that seems to have been left behind. . . I can't stress enough how much the guitars set the atmosphere, but there are also outstanding keyboards, bass, drums and vocals to support them.

Most of the album is very hard rock/metal, but the softer songs make even more of an impression because of this. The trademark "Savatage" vocals in "round-robin" presentation (each vocal starts with a certain lyric and tone and is then overlaid with a new lyric and tone 3 more times) is SO impressive. Hearing all these different melody/lyric lines happening at the same time with none of them getting screwed up is nothing short of fantastic.

The progression in intracacy from the first "Savatage" concept album "Streets," through "Dead Winter Dead" and "Wake Of Magellen" becomes even more apparent on "Poets And Madmen." This band has been around for a long time, but each new album seems to outdo the previous ones. I highly recommend this album to any music lover. There is so much diversity in instrumentals, vocals and lyrics it's impressive even if the genre isn't your favorite type.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Better with each album!!!, April 28, 2001

By 

Jonathon Rose (Stockton Springs, ME) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Poets & Madmen (Audio CD)

What a shock Savatage has realesed another great album. Zak's gone but Jon is back with a vengence. His vocals are crisp and the best they've sounded since Streets. The drumming is great as usual and both Chris and Jonny are playing great. The storyline is one of their best yet, and the music tells the story very well though it takes a few spins to get a good understanding. This album could be seperated into two acts, before and after Morphine Child since it's witht hat song the album changes target. I saw the band last night. They had to be seen to beleive. The new guy's are great. The new vocalist fits the style perfectly and is a wildman on stage. He does the Zak songs perectly and a pretty good job on "The Mountain King"'s as well. Buy this album see it performed live and you'll see the show of your life.