DEAD WINTER DEAD

With Criss Oliva suitably memorialised on the previous album and Jon Oliva having grown into the lead songwriter role and able to once again become an official full member of the band, Savatage's Dead Winter Dead finds them offering a sober, more mature take on the rock opera style they'd tried out on Streets. Taking as inspiration the bitter civil war raging at the time in Bosnia, the album tells a Romeo and Juliet-esque story of love crossing community boundaries. It isn't fun and games and frolics by any stretch of the imagination, but instead offers exactly the sort of serious consideration the subject matter at hand calls for.