There’s a heck of a lot going on on Rising, the second full-length offering from Spanish trad metallers Savaged. Luckily, almost everything that’s going on is also very good, which makes Rising a very palatable listening experience indeed.

Opening track Fire It Up (which comes after a short, scene-setting instrumental, natch) sounds like any of number of albums that came out on the Mausoleum album in the early eighties; By all available metrics used by Sentinel Daily in the review process that’s a good thing – a very good thing indeed, actually -and the quality doesn’t really let up from moment one. Fire It Up sounds like an enthusiastic mix of Accept and Mercyful Fate, whilst Judas Priest are never far away on most of the other tracks; At it’s best – the title track, Across The Burning Fields and Stars Are Falling –  band bring a level of maturity and class that augments their obvious love for their subject matter  to such an extent that it’s actually pretty hard to find anything to criticise.

In fact, the slightly awkward Queen of My Salvation apart, what we have here is a record that really belies Savaged’s ‘unknown’ status. Many bands far more reknowned than these blokes would kill to put up something as well-executed as Rising for general consumption. Jamie Kilhead tempers his vocals perfectly, never oversinging and reserving his higher register for maximum effect, and he and Joan Grimalt acquit themselves well as an economical but very effective guitar team. They certainly know  decent chug when they hear one, and the soloing throughout is impressive. Similarly bassist Aleix Coll and drummer Cristian Blade keep things tight at the back, adding urgency and solidity in equal measure but never letting things get too busy. As a quartet, Savaged let nothing go to waste and extract every last ounce of reward from their efforts.

At the end of the day, albums like Rising are always a joy to hear; Savaged clearly love ‘proper’ heavy metal as much as you or I, and it’s a pleasure to hear them going about their business on this little ripper of an album.

Rising releases on June 13th.