Saxon Announce 'Inspirations'

From my inbox:

British Heavy Metal legends Saxon will deliver a full-roar-fun-down set of covers with their latest album Inspirations, which drops a brand new 11 track release featuring some of the superb classic rock songs that influenced Biff Byford & the band.

 

Set for release on March 19^th 2021, via Silver Lining Music, Inspirations gets things rolling with the release of Saxon’s crunching take on The Rolling Stones’ "Paint It Black."  Biff Byford comments: “Loved this band since I first saw them and heard them.  I liked the Beatles, but the Stones appealed to my rebel side; their iconic look… so many great songs, such a great attitude in the music!”

 

The release of "Paint It Black" is also accompanied by a behind-the-scenes video which was filmed during the band’s recording session earlier in the year.  

 

Inspirations was recorded at Brockfield Hall near York in the UK, which was built in 1804 and holds the largest collection of paintings by Yorkshire’s impressionist artists – the Staithes Group. For Byford, recording Inspirations all together within such a rich historical environment was a major ingredient of the project. “The warmth and feel of Inspirations had so much to do with being together in this magnificent place and doing it ‘old-school’ style,” Byford explains. “This is how many bands back in the day -including some of the ones covered here- made such great albums, so it just felt really good to be able to do this somewhere like Brockfield Hall.” The results speak for themselves.

Track Listing:

1. Paint It Black
2. Immigrant Song
3. Paperback Writer
4. Evil Woman
5. Stone Free
6. Bomber
7. Speed King
8. The Rocker
9. Hold The Line
10. Problem Child
11. See My Friends

Comments

[Him]

In shocking news: it sounds like Saxon covering The Stones!!! Saxon certainly has a 'sound'. And, unlike some other bands that never broke big in the States (both from across the pond and above us in the Frozen North), they have some songs to back up their promises of metal. It ain't tricky. It ain't complex. It's Saxon!!!

Is it me, though, or does this song sound harshly processed? I know it is a YT clip. But you can get a sense of what the actual CD or album will sound like. And, to me, it sounds like a bit too much studio sweetening and post-production puffing.

[Metalboy!]

SAXON is one of my all time favorite bands who certainly know how to do a great cover - take their classic “Ride Like The Wind” off “Destiny”, their much maligned, yet finest album, for example - but this particular track sounds a bit mailed-in and by the numbers ...

I think they would have been better off recording in a legendary studio in London where they could really crank it up without worrying about shattering the glass in the cabinetry.

However, I am hopeful some of their cover choices will yield something a little more kick-ass, if you will, say “Problem Child” (my favorite AC/DC song) or the potentially unintendedly hilarious “Hold the Line” and “Evil Woman”.

Coda: For even more amusement regarding SAXON’s capabilities in the covers department, check out their savage rendition of Priest’s “You Got Another Thing Comin’” on “A Tribute to Judas Priest: Legends of Metal” from 1997.

p.s. Also, this video is full of unintended (or is it?) comedy, i.e. Biff, or whoever the h*ll it is, wheeling in some equipment or a meaningless pan of the near empty foyer.

[Him]

Metalboy!, you are on task right now! Yes, that video has some creatively strange choices, or simply strange choices. When you make a video on a dime, it often looks like a nickel!

[Metalboy!]

Haha!!, HIM! ... So true!