Album Review: Running Wild - Blood on Blood
Reviewed by Dan Barnes
It’s a testimony to the enduring power of HEAVY METAL, that forty-five years after their formation in Hamburg, Running Wild are still releasing records. Yet there is something unstoppable about the Big Four of German Power Metal, with Grave Digger having release album number 20 in 2020 and Rage putting out Resurrection Day, their twenty-sixth full-length earlier this year. In fact, when compared to their countrymen, Helloween appear to be slacking having only put out their sixteen opus in the summer.
As the Fourth Horseman of this particular apocalypse, Running Wild have perhaps been the least active, with there having been a five-year gap between Rapid Foray and 2021’s Blood on Blood. Those of us of a certain age can well remember those Noise releases on vinyl, with the inner-sleeves plastered with ads for Celtic Frost, Deathrow and Kreator albums, with Running Wild’s Under Jolly Roger and Port Royal showing they were doing Pirate Metal before Alestorm, Swashbuckle or any number of survy dogs picked up a cutlas and sailed the Seven Seas.
However, don’t expect to have to take the sea-sickness pills to approach Blood on Blood as the ever-present Rolf Kasparek leads his charges through ten chest-beating, adrenaline-pumping anthems, whose subject matter ranges encapsulates the likes of Dumas’ Three Musketeers, the Thirty-Years War and the prophecies of the Knight’s Templar.
There’s more than enough old school Power Metal on show for those seeking escapism; the title track begins everything as though a statement of intent that Running Wild are not going quietly into the good night. From the outset, Blood on Blood – both the song and the album – is crammed full of pummelling rhythms, the kind of singalong choruses that are the collegial equal of any hardcore gang vocal and topped off with some killer guitar work from Peter Jordan, the band’s second longest serving member.
The rhythm section of Ole Hempelmann and drummer Michael Wolpers keep everything moving along at a break-neck pace, Wolper’s drum-hits have the accuracy of laser-guided missiles on Wings of Fire, as they compete with the meaty riffs.
Save Your Prayers, Wild and Free and Wild, Wild Nights burst out of the speakers like it’s 1988 and neither Grunge nor Nu Metal ever happened; whereas the two advanced singles, Diamonds and Pears and The Shellback suggest there’s far more to Running Wild than any formulaic adherence any Power Metal script. The former plays a little more with the eccentricities of the music and The Shellback incorporates something of a Maiden sound to the guitar early on.
For those of us there at the beginning it would be insanity to even consider an album not to feature a ballad and an epic and Running Wild have not allowed Blood on Blood an incomplete birthing. One Night, One Day features plenty of clean guitar as the song builds to a stirring climax. The eleven-minute epic, The Iron Times (1614 – 1648), being one of the most ambitious songs Running Wild have attempted, but the groove-heavy riff’s interaction with the trademark sound, show that even after nearly half a century, Running Wild are not about to be pigeon-holed without a fight.
Blood on Blood is a fine demonstration that although Running Wild might now be confined to shore, they still have the same buccaneering spirit of adventure they did back 1984’’s Gates of Purgatory. Much as I’m loathe to do so as it’s such an obvious comment, but it’s just staring us all in the face: Running Wild for Bloodstock!
