Saxon

ALBUM REVIEW

Saxon
St Georges Day Sacrifice – Live in Manchester
added: 7 Apr 2014 // release date: 7 Apr 2014 // label: UDR
reviewer: Andy Snipper [edit]



Saxon were, and are, one of the progenitors of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal and somehow, through years and years of constant playing and working, they have gotten rather good at metal, especially live.

This set captures them in all their pomp and majesty on a great night in Manchester last year.

All the essentials are there – great riffs, massive drums and a singer who is just on this edge of excess and strangulation. The crowd sound as though they were in great form as well so all sets up for a monster set.

Biff Byford is in great voice, especially on tracks like ‘Wheels Of Terror’ and ‘Conquistador’ and the band behind him are playing like monsters – Doug Scarratt & Pail Quinn are riffmeisters but also show a certain amount of restraint on tracks such as ‘The Broken Heroes’. The drum/bass combo of Nigel Glockler and Nibbs Carter is awesomely tight and the whole package is as good, or better, than any of their NWOBHM compatriots today.

So, what do you get?
2 CDs worth of essentially British metal, lots of crowd interaction, a selection from most of Saxon’s extremely long back catalog and over two hours of head banging joy.

You won’t get anything earth-shatteringly new from a band like Saxon but if you are into metal they deliver and this is a great release.

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4 stars