Cons: The rest don't; Pretty forgettable and uninspired, awkward style changes
The Bottom Line: The problem with this CD is that it’s very forgettable. It’s like a bad airplane model: nothing fits together, it falls apart, and it never gets off the ground.
metalking's Full Review: The Age of Mastery by Jag Panzer
For those of you who don’t know (which is many,) Jag Panzer is a progressive power metal band from Colorado. They use keyboards, pounding drums, a Rob Halford sound-a-like, pure metal riffs, and great solos. They like to use harmonies, both in the guitars and soaring vocals, while still maintaining originality. This band had moderate underground success in the 1980s and then disappeared. After a long absence, they resurfaced in 1994 with Dissident Alliance and have made plenty of solid albums since. Unfortunately, The Age of Mastery is more a pile of parts that aren’t glued together.
1. Iron Eagle- Despite the cool name, it’s fairly average. A short intro with the obligatory “a-thousand-notes-in-two-seconds guitar solo,” it starts the verse. The lead singer, Harry Conklin, is out of tune hitting the high notes—inexcusable for power metal. The chorus is pretty lame, too. The solo in the middle lacks any real structure and just sort of wanks around. The lead guitarist, Chris Broderick, has improved markedly since this release, but here it’s a bit boring, and so the song never gets off the ground.
2. Lustfull and Free- Who mastered this CD? There’s a hint of white noise distortion in the beginning! The music picks up the power a bit, although it commits the ultimate Power Metal cliché: the double bass comes in right away, before half a minute’s passed. In my opinion, only death metal can pull that off. Consequently, it ends up sounding a bit like flowery European power metal. Get a load of the lyrics: “Sporting our leather with pride…so hard to keep it inside.” Please no.
3. Twilight Years- What an odd intro! It sounds like a whole chord is being strummed on a distorted guitar as if it were an acoustic. I would’ve preferred a power chord. Harry Conklin’s build up to the chorus is noticeably better the chorus itself, and certainly much better than the clean guitar and voice break after each chorus. Just really weird.
4. Sworn to Silence- This song was originally on their album Chain of Command, recorded in 1987 but not released until just this summer (2004). The verse is spoken rather than sung with a group—a bit too close to how Rap does it for my comfort, but it works, especially with the great lyrics. The chorus comes in right away, and it’s very 㣴s sounding (as it should). There’s a couple of interesting tempo changes in this relatively short song.
5. False Messiah- Very good driving main riff and lyrics. A bit simpler and groove-oriented, which is a breath of fresh air after bombastic songs like Lustfull and Free. Some interesting guitar work and tone as well, but it goes on too long.
6. The Age of Mastery- 1950s Rock ‘n’ Roll quick chord progressions don’t really belong at the intro of a song anymore, especially in Heavy Metal. In fact, Country does this a lot, and is that a Country-sounding fiddle I hear in the mix? I’m all for orchestral Heavy Metal, but this just sounds weird. You can’t just throw in an instrument that’s simply played in an orchestra and be done with it; the notes played have to match it stylistically. The vocal melody just plain sucks, too.
7. Viper- Hey, Megadeth’s Killing Fields from Youthanasia! Well, no—this song is also from the then-unreleased album Chain of Command, recorded 7 years before Youthanasia (only it was called Never Surrender). The main riff really keeps things going. The chorus shouts “Survivor!” in front of some pounding drum beats. Decent.
8. Displacement- Ugh! Like track #6, this starts out with the 3rd interval, which sounds really bad using the chords they use. The high vocals sound very “girly” instead of gritty, and it was hard to listen to past 10 seconds. This song should be “displaced” from the CD.
9. Chain of Command- The one truly excellent song on the album. If you can find this CD, The Age of Mastery, for cheap enough, it’s worth it for this song alone. As you may or may not have guessed, this is the title track from the 1987 album Chain of Command, only recorded much clearer (The supposedly “remastered” official release of Chain of Command hardly sounds cleaned up at all). It starts out beautifully with a classical guitar, then as a surprise, it launches the intro in all its glory. The vocals start out with “They sit in silence as we march into war...” into the chorus guaranteed to have you singing along. It’s a good anti-war song and very catchy. For the first time, the violin is used effectively. Fun tempo and riff changes keep your interest high until the last note.
10. Take This Pain Away- Here’s the slow to middle-tempo ballad. Harry Conklin’s later work on Mechanized Warfare and Casting the Stones is great, but here he sounds really out of tune and quaky, as ballads aren’t his specialty, and it’s not a very well written one anyway. It just plods along and never peaks. How ironic that this song should suck so much! Yes, please take this pain away.
11. Burning Heart- The mastering problem shows up again here but quickly fades away. The song, however, is really a bombastic cluster of vocals, elaborate drumming, and wandering solos. Instead of using those elements as “salt and pepper” for the song, the salt and pepper shakers are dumped on the table and the main course is nowhere to be found.
12. The Moors- Could the keyboard work sound any more fake? I suppose it could, but it’s not very convincing. A bombastic chorus leads into Conklin singing an absolutely god-awful line with an out-of-place bass line in the background. Am I even listening to a Heavy Metal CD? It goes back and forth between the thin instrumentation and the bombastic chorus; there’s no middle ground and nothing’s connected. It ends with a violin ensemble…why? Stylistically out of place—just like most of the CD.
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