Savatage- Streets: A Rock Opera

God. Look at that cover. The late 80s/early 90s was such a depressing time. If Rolling Stone magazine can call the ‘Zuma’ cover one of the worst ever, heaven knows what they made of this one. Savatage have even stuck Cactus Jack on there pretending that no one would even notice because they are too busy laughing.

This is a 1991 album from Technical Metal/Prog Rock outfit Savatage. Just in case you were wondering if it might be too cool for you to listen to they gave the album the subtitle of ‘A Rock Opera’. This is the type of album that Dream Theater would produce if they made concept albums rather than concept songs. The CD edition that I have kindly provides the story as I never bother to listen to lyrics as I see the voice as an instrument and am more interested in the sound rather than what they are saying. The story is somewhat similar to ‘The Wall’ by Pink Floyd but with less totalitarian aspects. ‘The Wall’ comparison goes further than just the story, with many parts of the music sounding like they could come from that album too as well as Journey.

The variations that Savatage have in their music consist of mainly the difference between acoustic and electronic, rather than any Faith No More style genre hopping. It makes you wonder why The Mars Volta insist that they are Progressive Metal, being lumped in with Savatage and Dream Theater, when I would say they were more Jazz Metal.