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The streak of albums alternating between obscure metal and indie folk/country extends and is now up to seven!
Disc 1904 is… Dark & Dangerous
Artist: Savage Master
Year of Release: 2024
What’s up with the Cover? Early Savage Master albums featured cool artwork, but starting with 2022’s “Those Who Hunt At Night” they switched to live action “scenes”. This decision represents a notable drop-off in quality, but what these covers lack in professional quality they make up for in kitsch.
On “Dark & Dangerous” we have lead singer Stacey Savage going full high priestess cosplay, complete with fancy dagger and a bouquet of black roses. Behind her there’s a cultist with a candelabra, presumably letting her know dinner is ready.
After dinner there’s going to be a live-action murder mystery night using the rules to Vampire: the Masquerade, followed by a midnight showing of “Only Lovers Left Alive”. Delightful!
How I Came To Know It: I read a review of this record on Angry Metal Guy and decided to give them a chance. I liked it a fair bit (more than the Angry Metal Guy reviewer did) and bought it straight away.
How It Stacks Up: I have started digging through Savage Master’s back catalogue since my discovery, and now have three of their albums, with two more on my “to get” list. Of the three I have, “Dark & Dangerous” comes in at #3. Hey, something’s gotta be last.
Ratings: 3 stars
Do you like heavy metal from the mid-eighties? Because if you don’t, then “Dark & Dangerous” might not be a record for you. Fortunately, I have been around metal long enough to pick up what Savage Master are putting down. This, their fifth full length album came out in 2025, but if you thought it came out in 1985, you could be forgiven the mistake. These guys are so throwback it’s like they just emerged from cryogenic freezing.
There were a few kinds of metal, even back in the days of the eighties, and Savage Master is the kind that generated mass appeal at the time. Think Ratt or Motley Crue, and you’ll have an approximation. I didn’t have any Ratt or Motley Crue in the day, but I liked it, and I made up for it with Dokken, Krokus, and Quiet Riot to name a few. This is straightforward metal, so easy on the ears that if it weren’t for the guitars being turned up you might mistake it for – gasp – hard rock.
Back in the day, that argument could get downright heated (my brother and I called Def Leppard “tinsel” to indicate our disdain for their lack of heaviness, and fans of Metallica and Cirith Ungol looked down on Quiet Riot). It was a crazy obsessive genre parsing that we metalheads can never seem to shed.
But I digress – back to Savage Master’s latest record, which ticks a lot of boxes for me. It has mid-tempo guitar riffs that are great for driving, moshing and throwing up devil horns to (please do not do all three of these things at the same time -it’s dangerous).
It also has a charismatic lead singer in the person of Stacey Savage. Savage will not blow you away with range or power but she sings with gusto and the songs aren’t written with vocal gymnastics in mind anyway. Middle of the road metal that dares you to call it hard rock. As noted above it’s on the edge, but I’m going to take a stand like I used to do back in the day and say…metal.
It also sings about what I will loosely label as “cool stuff” like runnin’ with the devil, vampires, and death. Again, middle of the road topics but there’s a reason these topics get a lot of time on metal records of all subgenres: they’re nifty.
The lyrics on this record are not great. There are more than a few strained and obvious rhymes and not enough creativity in the imagery or metaphor.
As for the playing, these guys are tight and do what they do well. The songwriting (principally bassist Adam Neal and lead guitarist Nicholas Burks) isn’t Rush – it is stuff you can play if you know how to play. This is not a criticism – everything doesn’t need to have a weird time signature to be good. The guitar solos are straightforward, but they are played with joyful control, and know when to cut back to the chorus before you get restless – something many a soloist should learn early on. Leave ‘em wanting more…
While mostly this record is just well-liquor hi-balls, there are bright spots along the way that kept me entranced. In fact, they save the best for last, with the relatively slowed down “Coldhearted Death”.
In addition to being one of the three cool topics noted earlier, “Coldhearted Death” is easily the longest song on the record, its six-plus minutes being almost double most of the other tunes. I didn’t mind, though – it has the most interesting arrangements on the record, and Stacey Savage’s vocals get shown off here in a way that the previous “gruff anthem” styles don’t allow for.
“Dark & Dangerous” is not a record that breaks new ground. Hell, it unabashedly explores very old ground at every turn. It isn’t even Savage Master’s best record, lacking some of the fiery edge of the band’s earlier efforts.
But sometimes you just want songs that land on the beat and feel good. That’s this record. These guys can play, Savage can sing, and it has the good sense to end on a high note. Did it reach for that third star I gave it? Sure, but it got there all the same.
Best tracks: I Am the Black Rider, The Edge of Evil, Coldhearted Death
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