STREETS - A ROCK OPERA

I've been changing, redefining...

I first heard about Savatage at the time they released "Hall of the Mountain King". In Dutch magazine Aardschok they were announced as 'the heaviest of them all', which at the time was very interesting to a 15-year-old metalhead. Later on, I got wiser...

Streets is the first attempt at creating a concept album, a rock opera as they claim, and to a certain extend it is their best. The other three (Dead Winter Dead, Wake of Magellan, Poets & Madman) were also good, but Streets has a number of pieces that just get stuck in your head. The story of repentant, musical drug addict and dealer D.T. Jesus is on my mind forever...

It's hard to pick out individual songs for me, I usually put up this album when I feel like sitting down for over an hour just listening - from beginning to end. However, besides the magnificent , haunting, title track, there are three little gems in there that are always tempting me to 'skip forward'. First is 'A little too far', a great ballad which at first I couldn't believe was Savatage. Well actually, it's just Jon and his piano of course. Second is the combined track (on my CD at least) You're Alive/Sammy and Tex. This is really a show case of what Savatage could do already with respect to metal, but taken to a different level. Loud, heavy, melodic and a perfect sound setting for the murder of D.T's best friend Tex. The transition from You're Alive to the hacking riff in Sammy and Tex is great, as well as the turn to the soft piano in follow up St. Patrick's - when D.T. realizes what went wrong. The music just perfectly reflects the mood changes in the story again. And that takes me to gem #3, again a combined track, Somewhere in Time/Believe. This song combines some of the overall mood changes and the musical capabilities of the band, it's my favourite Savatage track. Despair, and hope are the main messages of the song, and the guitar and piano of the Oliva brothers seem to be just perfect to express this message.

Yes, I got wiser, and this album somehow indicates the start of my next move. I didn't abandon my metal albums, but this one, together with Rush 'Moving Pictures' definitely opened my mental door for other options than hacking metal.