Huge love this week to my friend Ross who let me pick through some of his unwanted CDs before he parted with them, where I found many a gem, both hidden and unhidden. Assuming I keep this up, all shall appear on future editions of the CD Odyssey. I look forward to it!
Disc 1911 is… The Train
Artist: Master Spy
Year of Release: 2021
What’s up with the Cover? This cover looks like the cover of a cyberpunk novel. A barrage of questions spring to mind. How did those mysterious men in suits get that scar across their eye. Are they just clumsy with the corkscrew, or does it signify their membership in an elite league of assassins!?!
Is the woman with the eyepatch also a member, but for her the initiation cut a bit too deep? Also, why is she the only woman wearing pants? This story begs for a prequel and a sequel, and I haven’t even read the original!
Bursting out of the Futuristic City (note the flying cars) races the titular train, calling out to us to witness all the glorious mayhem, the set piece fight sequences, and chase scene after chase scene until we collapse exhausted just from watching.
And will there be aliens, you ask? Your goddamn right there will.
How I Came To Know It: I really liked Master Spy’s 2025 album “Maze Runner” (which got an honourable mention in my “Best of the Year” entry) and dug backward through their catalogue. I bought this one as a download after concluding finding it in hard copy would be impossible.
How It Stacks Up: I have two Master Spy albums, and this one is a distant second.
Ratings: 2 stars but almost 3
My renewed love of heavy metal means I sometimes get overexuberant in the purchasing world, but as the saying (sort of) goes, nothing exceeds like excess. That saying applies well to Canadian power metal band Master Spy.
Power metal requires a heavy dose of bombast, and “The Train” contains plenty. Master Spy aren’t shy about throwing a few epics into the mix as well, as evidenced by a record which has only five songs but a running time well north of 40 minutes.
A ponderous beat is welcome in doom metal, but in power metal it is the enemy and on “The Train” you get the traditional galloping energy of the genre.
Lead singer Flavio Lino has opera-adjacent vocals that are reminiscent of Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson, albeit old Bruce, not young Bruce. Old Bruce still has plenty in the tank, but don’t expect him to hit that last note of the chorus of “Aces High”. Lino doesn’t even attempt such things, but his vibrato delivery and rich tone are akin to the centre range of Dickinson’s vocals.
Overall the band shows a lot of influence of Maiden – to the point where their Bandcamp review of this record notes, “if you like the long epics in the vein of Iron Maiden, you’ll probably like our music.” I do and I did.
Subject wise, the lads get into the strange fare I expect from a band of this nature. “The Policeman” is about a policeman ambushed by criminals and left for dead, but returning to exact vengeance. We imagine the action occurs during a heavy rain, with a lot of grey-on-grey tones.
But my greatest pleasure on “The Train” is a guilty one. “Alien Encounter” has the band leaning in hard to the new theme. Things start with a slower pace and a bit of bass guitar that adds mystery. The band immediately sets the scene with lines right out of Poe:
“Last night, as I was driving alone
On my way, on a small road to my summer house”
But as you can see, not with the same poetic flair. The song gets deep, as the aliens warn us the earth is doomed (disconcerting) and that they’d be back to sort us out later (whether this is an offer of support or a threat isn’t clear). Lest you doubt the narrator, he sings gustily, “…what I saw was not a dream/I’m telling you the truth”.
I like the guitar work in “Alien Encounter” plenty, and at a mere seven minutes, it is the album’s version of a radio single.
So with all this fun I was having, why the relatively low grade?
Part of this is with the lyrics that tell a story well, but don’t paint a picture. Things are very literal and the phrasing of the delivery can be a bit off Broadway or mechanical, or both. Yes, I know this is part of what this style of metal is all about, but there’s a line that gets crossed in places, notably “Cannibal Island” which is about…an island of cannibals. It sounds more like a pitch document from some movie execs than the full screenplay.
That said, the musicianship is solid. The drums are sharp and precise to the style, the guitar has great tone (although the solos vary in quality) and Lino’s old Dickenson is, well, still Dickensian.
So two stars, but a very fond two stars. I didn’t learn a lot, but I had fun.
Best tracks: The Policeman, Alien Encounter
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