Blazon Stone - Running Wild

...rocks!

Blazon Stone was the fourth Running Wild album I bought, the seventh they had released. The other three purchases, for the record, were: “Under Jolly Roger”, “Port Royal” and “Death or Glory”. Blazon Stone remains my favourite of the four. I think you can follow a trail through each of the albums as they consolidate their style, the songwriting improves, the performance gets tighter and the ...
...at this.

Blazon Stone by Running Wild was released in 1991 on the Noise International label. The band at the time were:

Rolf Kasparek: Lead Guitar and vocal
Axel Morgan: Lead Guitar
Jens Becker: Bass
Mr. AC: Drums

Although this line up probably lasted until about ten minutes after they finished recording. Rolf likes to get a fresh new band in for every album!

Now historically, ... more

Or: “What does a pirate keep under his buckin’ hat?”

Do you ever wonder about the random events that shape the course of your life? The chance encounters, something you overheard, somebody you met, a favour you did, those seemingly inconsequential things that set you off down a particular path. Cause and effect some call it. Odd I call it.

And so it was that music journalist Dante Bonutto, a record shop in Manchester called Power Cuts, my friend Stephen Blair and Fridays led me to discover the joys of Running Wild. When I look back on it, it was inevitable that me and the band were going to come together at some point. You only have to check them out briefly to realise this.

Here is the case for the defence:

1) They’re German, and German bands take their heavy metal VERY seriously.
2) They refer to themselves as “The Metal Pirates”.
3) They sing songs about being pirates on the Spanish Main, dress in studded leather with pirate paraphernalia (like eye patches and bandanas), their album covers depict piratical scenes. Their mascot is a particularly mean looking Jolly Roger.
4) Their lead singer, Rolf Kasparek, calls himself “Rock ‘n’ Rolf” – he sings in English with a very heavy German accent and he has a slight speech impediment.
5) They have cool pirate phrases that they bellow a lot, such as “Are you Weady for Boarding? Then Let the Cannon Speak!”
6) They also, every so often, come up with some blinding heavy metal.

How could I possibly have resisted, your honour?

Now I admit that much of my appreciation of “the Pirates” is, shall we say, ironic. If not for the love of cheesiness and absolute bad taste I would have stayed clear of this bunch of curiosities. However, there is a vein of quality running through their music, admittedly more down to painstaking execution and pure commitment than actual creativity (it’s not the most original music you ever heard) but nonetheless, it rocks!

Blazon Stone was the fourth Running Wild album I bought, the seventh they had released. The other three purchases, for the record, were: “Under Jolly Roger”, “Port Royal” and “Death or Glory”. Blazon Stone remains my favourite of the four. I think you can follow a trail through each of the albums as they consolidate their style, the songwriting improves, the performance gets tighter and the overall sound gets better and better.

By this stage, each song offers sophisticated guitar passages, good use of contrast, good solid backline, crunching parallel rhythm guitar and a battery of twin harmony lead guitar-work. The “twin guitar”, where the guitarists play the same passages at the same time at different “intervals” in the octave, is probably my favourite rock style and admittedly is what drew me to the band more than any other single thing – they really do excel at this.

Blazon Stone by Running Wild was released in 1991 on the Noise International label. The band at the time were:

Rolf Kasparek: Lead Guitar and vocal
Axel Morgan: Lead Guitar
Jens Becker: Bass
Mr. AC: Drums

Although this line up probably lasted until about ten minutes after they finished recording. Rolf likes to get a fresh new band in for every album!

Now historically, their material has lacked in the consistency department. Apart from their lyrics which are consistently awful. But this album was different in that there were no real howlers. There are a few tracks that were a little on the average side, the rest are real stonkers. Here’s a quick run down of what to expect. Note that this is the track listing that appears on the vinyl version. The CD may contain bonus tracks, depending on where you look.

Blazon Stone: 7½ / 10

Guitars, thousands of the buggers, picking out the simple five-note intro, with even more playing a harmony part. Layer upon layer stretching out this gorgeous protracted intro ’til we climax with a crescendo of ROCK! The opening anthem has begun and the guitars build from the simple opening theme into a sophisticated barrage of triplets, powerful and frenetic as the Pirates sing about their comradeship on the high seas! The main body of the song is solid if unremarkable. But that intro……….

Lonewolf: 5 / 10

Immediate change of style here, for this low-down rocker of a track that borrows heavily from the Judas Priest school of chugg-a-rama. Bit of a filler.

Slavery: 6 / 10

A drunken piano plays somewhere in this distance during this intro, and we hear the doleful moaning of the slaves. The lead guitar enters with some fierce tripleting, as if mimicking the whiplash of the wicked tormenter (maybe!) picking out the complex riff that builds through to the end of the verse. Rolf laments about the pain of slavery at sea as the drum beats out his message of oppression.

“Slavery, the pain of the sea…”

Fire and Ice: 7 / 10

Lively twin guitar intro leads into a monster riff as both guitars chock out those massive Major 5th chords in clinical unison. Tub thumper of a chorus.

Little Big Horn: 9 / 10

Everything I learned about history and general knowledge, I got from Heavy Metal y’know…

The war drums lead us into the sorry tale of Custer’s last stand and not even the lead guitar, that picks out the superb hookline can save the poor general. This frantic pentatonic melody leads us straight to the verse where the lead line is offset by some simple, yet effective chord work on this, the most creative track so far. The big bad sweaty chorus is a monster, but we’re allowed some respite while the war drums take us through to a firecracker of a solo. The last post signals the final downfall of Custer and his men…!

White Masque: 9 / 10

Picture the horse drawn coach teetering down the uneven and rain-drenched track. Out of the gloom you hear those word you’ve always dreaded: “Stand and Deliver!” Oh no! The highwayman is here! Yup, and with him the most frantic fretwork yet from Rolf and Jens. This frenetic pentatonic battering is relentless and tighter than the highwayman’s jodhpurs and you just know the crook will get away scott-free. Beware the White Masque!

Rolling Wheels: 4 / 10

Disappointing metal-by-numbers. The application of tempo changes does nothing to lift this song above mediocrity.

Bloody Red Rose: 8 / 10

This song is so pentatonic it might as well be baroque folk music (Greensleeves anyone?) Everything I love about this band in one neat package. Great riff, featuring Rolf’s trademark flourishes, chunky harmony guitar, some truly bad lyrics and some surprising tempo changes in this sorry tale of Richard III and Henry Tudor. Unsurprisingly, Rolf takes the side of Richard. I think he must be an honorary Yorkshireman. (Scumbag!)

Straight to Hell: 5 / 10

Marginally above average Major 5th workout.

Heads or Tails: 9 / 10

Slow, grinding chord-led riff brings us to the closing anthem, and Rolf is dissatisfied with the injustices of the world. Believe me, it’s worth the money just for the big gang chorus in all its English-as-a-second-language glory:

Heads or tails, which way you will choose now? (sic)
Die or live, surrender or fight
Wild and free, together we’ll stand
Strong and proud, we’ll claim our rights!

And you can’t say fairer than that.

When you purchase the album you get some quality original artwork on the sleeve, with pirate flavour. The lyrics are provided (unfortunately) along with a series of cheesy photographs. For an independent label, Noise were never ones for stinting on the packaging, (tricorn) hats off to them. Nice link.

“What does a pirate keep under his buckin’ hat?”

“His buccaneers!”

© Paiceyjohn’s archive of Rock 2001 

...less