Week 51: Running Wild - Genesis (The Making and the Fall of Man)

The artist: Running Wild are a power/traditional metal band from Germany who had written many great albums. Although Rock 'n' Rolf, the main man of the band stuck to what he was familiar with, it's hard to not appreciate all the great songs he's written throughout the years. Even during the later days where the band was losing inspiration and hired a drummer under a pseudonym named Angelo Sasso, Rolf still managed to write some excellent songs. Siberian Winter and The Ghost from The Brotherhood and Return of the Dragon and Ballad of William Kidd from The Rivalry should ensure that. Rolf would declare retirement of the band in 2009 but has recently announced a return along with a new album coming out in April named Shadowmaker.

The album: Black Hand Inn is the 1994 album from Running Wild which follows the same similar style to Pile of Skulls. These releases were less raw than their predecessors and had a more polished feel to them. Not that it's a bad thing or anything since it breathed some fresh air in their music. Like Pile of Skulls, there were many fast songs found throughout the album. Black Hand Inn even kicks off the record in a similar way to Pile of Skulls where it build up with an intro track and them BAM, you're launched into a speed metal craze. With essentials like The Privateer and even some gems with Fight the Fire of Hate, The Phantom of Black Hand Hill and Powder & Iron, you can forget the babbling from Allmusic who actually gave this album 1.5 stars and acknowledge great effort from this release.

The song: Genesis (The Making and the Fall of Man) starts off with a spoken verse explaining the events of the 12th planet from over 400,000 years ago, based on Zecharia Sitchin's work on ancient astronauts. Zecharia Sitchin's efforts weren't looked upon well for mistranslations, flawed methodology and a few other things but Rock 'n' Rolf saw something from it and made a 15 minute song dedicating to Sitchin's series. Even if the lyrical theme will irk you, it's hard to deny the greatness of the band's talents. Rock 'n' Rolf assisted with Thilo Hermann on guitars make some really good performance. Rock 'n' Rolf does make a huge domination with the song (well, it is his band) with his vocals and telling the band which direction to take throughout. With the climatic changes around six minutes in and ten minutes in, you can see a lot was done for this song and damn, that very riff at 10:40 is one hell of a headbanger and a good use of the galloping. Several high and mighty solos are found throughout the song and even though the beginning verse adds a few minutes to the song before it even began, Genesis (The Making and the Fall of Man) is one song of great attention that will last through all 15 minutes of its duration.