7. Savatage - Edge of Thorns (1993)Two years ago, I went back to my hometown of Pensacola, Florida for the first time since I was a baby. As I've already detailed in this countdown, I ended up making two blind purchases during that visit that led me to discovering two bands who would go on to become two of my personal favorite bands ever; Savatage's Hall of the Mountain King and Arch/Matheos' Sympathetic Resonance (which led me to discovering Fates Warning).
After falling in love with both albums, I ended up checking out other works by those bands. I really came to like Savatage right away. They were heavy and technical, while also being incredibly melodic and symphonic. There was an intelligence to them that wasn't quite present in some of their modern successors, such as Nightwish or Kamelot.
I still remember hearing Edge of Thorns for the first time. To be blunt, I despised it.
For some reason, Zak Stevens sounded incredibly dull and generic on the opening title track and I mentally shut out the rest of the album as I groaned and waited to go back to listening to Gutter Ballet. I decided then that I just wasn't as interested in latter Savatage as I was in the earlier band. Jon Oliva was the voice of the band and that was that.
A year later, I ended up checking out some of the other Stevens albums and found myself really enjoying them. But I told myself that I still hated Edge of Thorns and that I would just avoid that album at all costs.
Shortly after that, right around the time Queensryche's debut album with Todd La Torre came out, a fellow member here (I
think it was jjrock88? Either him or jammindude) posted a live video either here or at the Breakdown Room of Todd making a guest appearance at a Jon Oliva's Pain concert in honor of his deceased friend, Matt La Porte. Sure enough, the song Todd sang was Edge of Thorns. For whatever reason, the song finally clicked with me. I must have watched and rewatched that video so many times.
Finally, I decided to give Edge of Thorns another try. This time, it all clicked. Savatage was in top form, with Criss giving a final performance so incredible that it alone made his death all the more tragic. Zak Stevens blows down the gates with his pipes on this album and sealed his spot in my mind as Savatage's vocalist.
But was it my favorite Savatage album?
At first, the answer was a definite "No." I finally loved the album, but I found myself often wishing that it was a tad heavier, like A Handful of Rain or Hall of the Mountain King. Or perhaps more complex like Streets. At that stage, I simply could not decide on a favorite album. All of them had something great to give.
Over the past winter though, I suddenly got nostalgic. I kept thinking back to my trip to Pensacola and how it
felt like home to me, even though I had no memories of actually living there. Then I remembered my years living in and many trips back to Charleston, South Carolina. The Spanish moss, the swamps, so on and so forth. All of that led my mind to dwell back to Edge of Thorns... and I gave it a listen for the first time in awhile. Then I listened to it again and again and again.
Edge of Thorns fits my memories of those places so perfectly that it has come to resonate with me as the childhood album I never actually heard. As a result, while it isn't the most complex or the heaviest album Savatage ever did, it resonates with me the most.
The final reason I award this album the seventh spot on my Top 50 Albums list... My grandfather passed away on the exact same day that Criss Oliva did: October 17th, 1993. After finally fulfilling his dream of learning how to fly by piloting for what would be his first and last time, my grandfather dropped dead in a hanger from a heart attack.
I never knew him. I was less than a year old at that point, having only been born that Feburary, but apparently my grandfather became an incredibly different man in the final months of his life after I was born. I've heard plenty of stories from my dad about this. He'd gone from being a cold man and father to a bright and energetic grandfather full of optimism and sought to redeem himself in the eyes of his son.
I find it incredibly eerie that one of my all-time favorite guitarists not only came from my home state, but also that he died the exact same day as my grandfather.
Topic: Mister Gold's Top 50 Albums - "Here at the End of All Things" (Read 46872 times)