Saxon is probably the biggest remaining torchbearer for bands still associated with the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) movement which sprung forth in the early 1980s. Some of those bands were destined to burn brightly but not last very long (Angel Witch). Others fell by the wayside (Tytan, Bronz), or developed beyond their NWOBHM-roots and became something different (Def Leppard). A select few grew to become so massive that they simply left the NWOBHM-moniker behind, instead ending up defining the style of metal on a global scale (Iron Maiden).
Saxon has the unique distinction of more or less having belonged in all of the above categories. They are amongst the standard bearers of British heavy metal, at times certainly shining very brightly, inspiring most of the blockbuster metal bands that followed in the process. They have also had periods when they were totally dead in the water and probably closer to giving up than they care to admit.
All of this is old news to fans of the band. Ups and downs are part of their make-up, which ultimately have made them all about perseverance and survival, fuelled by an utter belief in what they do. They are the headliner and the underdog, all rolled up in one.
The fact that they have always soldiered on through any adversity is something I believe the band should be respected for. There is something comforting about bands like Saxon – they keep on touring and releasing albums, always sounding like themselves even when they attempt shades of different musical genres. They are dependable.
You can check out for 10-15 years, come back, and find that Saxon never did. They are still there, rocking on, happy to welcome you back to the fold.
Obviously it’s not a given that Saxon will always be around. We are significantly closer to their end than their beginnings. The fact that there still is a Saxon today is quite a feat given the amount of challenges. Their seemingly endless touring is also impressive, given the physically demanding music they have always played. Incredibly, at this point, their 50th anniversary as a band is approaching (they formed under the moniker Son of a Bitch in 1976). Lesser bands would not have endured, but the mighty Saxon is still here.
Carpe Diem is Saxon’s 24th studio album, emerging on 4 February 2022. This is their first album of original material since 2018’s Thunderbolt (excluding the covers album Inspirations, recorded during the pandemic’s first year and released in 2021). This is the longest break between studio albums of original material for the band, which more than anything speaks volumes about how prolific they have always been. The album was actually completed in the summer of 2020, but the pandemic meant it wasn’t the right time as they wanted to tour behind it.
There were other challenges as well. Vocalist Biff Byford suffered a heart attack in 2019 which forced him to have emergency triple bypass surgery. Thankfully it was successful. The title of the album may carry some extra weight for him, as it does anyone who is appreciative of every additional day they get.
Given the band’s vast history, it’s not always been easy to know where we have them. While their early years were dominated by a classic, aggressive, riff-based “street” metal style, their first album in particular also had progressive leanings. They would move through several styles over the years, through more radio friendly sounds towards more anthemic metal, then veering into the gothic, becoming more symphonic, and lately, circling back towards their starting point for a more classic and pure early 1980s metal expression.
In reading interviews with Biff Byford about the new album, the quote that he seems to bring up in just about all of them is “I was on a crusade to bring the guitar riffs back!” While I don’t think they were ever gone, several songs on the album have a directness and rawness which is designed to remind us of the early days.
If Saxon had released Carpe Diem in 1984 as the follow-up to Power & the Glory instead of following it with Crusader, it would almost have been business as usual for the band. With Crusader, the band was seen to take a bit of a left turn – potentially trying to get played on the radio a bit more, especially with an eye on the American market. They hardly went AOR though – Crusader is still very much Saxon music, but with a slightly increased emphasis on melodic riffs rather than in-your-face metal riffs. Personally, I find it an amazing album with strongly crafted songs, and the title track is certainly one of their best tracks ever. At the same time, it was the start of the band straying from the path they had walked up to then – showing growth and progress – which they would do to a larger extent on subsequent albums.
Saxon was not in a unique situation. Def Leppard streamlined their sound to conquer America, and Iron Maiden removed themselves from the punk/street roots, replacing the vocalist that embodied those in the process. Saxon’s changes were far less drastic, but they were harsher judged for their changes than the other bands. It felt like Saxon fans felt closer to them and took the changes more personally. Saxon had been ‘theirs’ yet now they were seen to be leaving for America – stylistically and literally (on tour), at least for long stretches.
The changes in style might have hurt them short-term, but it has also allowed the band to keep evolving over the years. Looking back at their career from the vantage point of 2022, I am sure it makes them more interesting than if they had tried to stick to the NWOBHM-style much further.
No matter where their journey took them, Saxon have always had a leg in that traditional metal that they started out as. While the Carpe Diem album also have some surprises, it finds the band mostly back to having both of their legs well planted (with the customary six feet apart) in that traditional metal style.
The title track Carpe Diem (Seize the Day) serves as a mission statement in that regard. It immediately tells us which version of Saxon we’re listening to, and the fact that the song also names the album speaks volumes. Bass player Nibbs Carter provided the main riff, which has a strong in-your-face quality as found on albums like Power & the Glory and Denim & Leather. This song proves that the band is still more than capable of going to those areas when they feel like it.
Lyrically, the song is not the happy-go-lucky encouragement to seize the day that the title may indicate, but rather a historic recount of Hadrian’s wall – a defence fortification built by the Roman general which stretched the width of the British isle. Saxon has a solid track record of tackling historical eras or events (Crusader), historic people (Lionheart), or even technology (Princess of the Night) of note. The song observes the role the wall used to have, and the fact that a significant portion of it is still standing.
But where does ‘carpe diem’ figure in?
“In Latin, it means ‘seize the day’” explains Byford, “and I think it’s a great thing to say. It’s what the Romans used to say to each other on a regular basis, apparently. Never having met one, I wouldn’t know. But we’re gonna do the ‘Seize The Day’ world tour, the album’s ‘Carpe Diem’, this song’s called Carpe Diem (Seize The Day), and it’s such a powerful thing to say.”
Far out on the border, stands an ancient wall
The limits of the empire where the eagles called
Carpe diem
Stretching out across the land, snakes through moor and stone
The wall was built by Hadrian, an emperor of Rome
Carpe diem
They came, they saw, they conquered
The legions of the eagle will not fall
Carpe diem, seize the day
Age of Steam continues with even more riffs-a-plenty, being an energetic ode to the technology that fuelled the industrial revolution generally, and perhaps the rise of steam trains especially. This continues to be a topic of interest for the band, whose classic track Princess of the Night remains one of the best and most powerful odes to a steam train the world has ever heard. Most of the band grew up in an industrial town in West Yorkshire, Byford even working in a coal mine at a young age. The industry, the trains, and that heritage is part of the band, and they have always managed to make songs about these topics their own.
This takes us to what might be the album highlight. I have always had a fondness for the more anthemic tracks with scope and epic atmospheres, and that is exactly what we get with The Pilgrimage. The intro is classic Saxon, sounding like a lovely combination of the classic tracks Rockin’ Again and Crusader. The rest of the song continues to retain those elements, with Byford delivering a powerful vocal over the melodic yet quietly urgent guitars, courtesy of co-founding member Paul Quinn and “new boy” Doug Scarratt (who joined in 1995).
Never mind that the first time I heard the song, I thought Byford was singing “Gilgamesh” in the chorus. Which wouldn’t have been an odd topic for Saxon to write about in any case.
This track is yet another homage to mankind’s need to search for a meaning, as exemplified by the many pilgrimages we have undertaken. Rather than focusing on a specific thing in history, the theme is kept general and tackles the generic drive to undertake the type of journeys that history is full of examples of.
Byford sings “It’s human nature to find a meaning / Of why we’re here and endless dreaming / To set our sights on distant lands”, and the song has exactly the type of expansive and anthemic quality that allows us the space to imagine all the journeys that the pilgrims undertook. Some for better, yet a lot of them probably for worse.
As Biff Byford attests to, a pilgrimage can come in many forms: “The Pilgrimage made me sit down and think about what a pilgrimage actually means to people, which can be a lot of things. It’s far more than Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. It can be about visiting Jim Morrison’s grave, or a battlefield in the Somme where their father or grandfather died. I love playing with words.”
Shine the light, show the way
We are leaving, leaving today
To take the path already trodden
To try and find what we’re looking for
It will be hard, it will be long
We’ll never falter, we shall be strong
Our destination that is our quest
We will not waiver, we will not rest
The journey has begun
We’re marching on and on
The pilgrimage
The pilgrimage
We are brought back to earth with Dambusters – yet another energetic song in the classic Saxon style. Lyrically this is an ode to the pilots involved in Operation Chastise in World War II, when the RAF attacked German dams to cause flooding. The song focuses on the pre-mission tenseness, the take-off, and everything up to the point of dropping the bomb. It also honours the sacrifices made by those who didn’t make it home.
The story behind it is pretty much a real-life Boy’s Own-type adventure story, about how engineer Barnes Wallace developed an ingenious ‘bouncing bomb’ to allow them to take out their targets. The story used to be universally known. This is no longer the case, but it remains one of the best and most inspiring tales from the war. It was the subject of a 1955 blockbuster movie, and according to some theories, it was also the inspiration behind how George Lucas came up with the mode of destruction of the Death Star in Star Wars. If nothing else, that should indicate what type of mission this was.
“If anyone was going to write that one it would have been us or Iron Maiden,” Byford told Classic Rock Magazine with a laugh. “As a story it’s totally British. I’ve done some interviews with German writers that asked: ‘Was ist Dambusters?’ And I needed to explain. People don’t talk much about it in Germany, but for us it’s perfect subject matter.”
As mentioned, the song also touch on those who didn’t make it home from that mission, and that aspect seems to be directly referenced in the title of the next track. Remember the Fallen is however about the Covid-19 virus. We can always count on Saxon to bring us tributes to lost ones in song form. Songs like Requiem (We Will Remember), Absent Friends, and Iron Wheels are all examples of lovely tributes to people no longer here.
As Remember the Fallen reminds us, most of us are tired of anything to do with that virus by now. Restrictions are at this point regarded as a damned nuisance by the majority. The virus has been normalized, as has our attitudes towards it. But, as the song points out: don’t forget those who lost their lives to it. Remember what it was like before we were vaccinated, before the virus mutated to current, less aggressive strains. Remember that some of us are still vulnerable. And remember the fallen. The song likens the situation to a war, with some stark reflections from Byford: “When the war is won / Our lives will never be the same”. As poignant as the topic is, the song does not slack, but mixes power with melody and emphasis at the right places very well.
Super Nova is yet another slice of pounding Saxon metal, with room for a more reflective and melodic solo section. The song is literally about what it says in the title – a sun in the far reaches of the universe is going super nova, and the surrounding planets are about to be engulfed. There’s always been room for a bit of space opera in heavy metal.
Lady In Gray takes the foot off the gas for a bit, allowing the melody to shine a bit more. The song is also richer in ambience, including an ethereal, ghost-like keyboard part. This befits the ghost story which is being told about the lady in gray, who keeps wandering the corridors of her old house. Several mysteries are uncovered as the song progress – how did she die? How old was she? What is it she is searching for? The song ends up spinning a mood rather than telling a complete story which has all the answers, but that works just fine. It makes for an interesting song which adds some diversity to the album – especially musically, in between the solid slabs of metal.
All For One blasts off again with a riff not too dissimilar to the classic Power And the Glory, which ends up being a good reference for this song. This is where Saxon’s at most of the time these days, and they do it as well as they ever did. As the title implies, this is about the credo of the three musketeers about standing besides your comrades to the end. A true metal topic, represented in a true metal song, which wouldn’t have been out of place on their early albums.
Black Is the Night is more comfortably mid-tempo than the songs surrounding it. The song could well have been inspired by the northernmost regions of the Norselands, as it spins a tale about those northern regions of our planet where the sun never rises above the horizon during the winter months. “Feel the darkness closing in / Twenty four hours a day / Black is the night,” Biff sings ominously. The song would have fit very well on Denim & Leather (1981), which has several songs with a similar mid-tempo build.
Living On the Limit ends the album, and the only way to go out here is with a bang. The track is energetic and engaging. It also has the typical Saxon trait in the choruses where the title is defiantly sung over and over. Makes me smile every time – it’s just so Saxon.
Lyrically the song might give me less than other songs on the album, although I appreciate the track’s message about pushing on and not worrying about things too much – take a chance and go for it. Biff probably describes it best with his lyric “Just let it go and sing the song”. And perhaps that’s good advise – not to overthink and analyse everything to death. Just enjoy it.
At the end of the day, the album proves one thing first and foremost: Saxon’s hunger has never gone away. They still feel they have something to prove, and sneer at the ‘heritage band’ label. “Carpe Diem is an important album for us,” Byford proudly declared to Classic Rock. “It’s the type of album that most heritage bands should be trying to make. It’s a big ‘fuck you’, and I know already that we will struggle to follow it. But we never relax and we always want to be better.”
There is an undeniable sense of purpose and desire within the band these days. Every moment feels like it counts, and as they are starting to stare their own mortality in the face (triple bypass surgeries notwithstanding), there is clearly no time left to dabble in mediocrity. Saxon are focused, sharp, and on point in their writing and performing. I have a feeling they will manage to hang on to that for the rest of their career.
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