... "Heroes, Saints and Fools" was the result. Sadly it was not the success it should have been- due at least partly to lack of promotion and support by the small record company. One look at the album cover and you will know that the record company did not spend megabucks on the band. Fools. If ... Read review
Advantages: 80s Ground breaking, original British symphonic rock Disadvantages: Never made it to the big time.
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HEROES SAINTS AND FOOLS
Playing in Saracen on this album were:
Rob Bendelow on guitar, the band leader and the song writer
Steve Bettney on vocals
Richard Lowe on keyboards and backing vocals
Barry Yates on bass guitar and backing vocals
John Thorne on drums
The album opens with with a single keyboard chord fading in. The drums and guitar come in, and "Crusader" ... ...tempo for the second verse. After the second chorus there is a sudden change of pace, a new riff and it leaps into a fast final verse, keyboard solo and last chorus with extra harmony vocals. The song finishes with a short and impressive drum cadenza.
The second song, "Rock Of Ages" is an upbeat, simple, rock anthem with a catchy riff and chorus. This could so easily have been a world wide hit, but....
The budget recording ... more
I can go on a bit about music so I'll try to be brief - and maybe even relevant! I've played in bands, gigged the pub circuit, met some great musicians, and I've seen some really talented people get nowhere. Then there are others who do get a deal but with a small label, who can't compete with the big names for promotion and hype so they never break into the big time. Some do eventually - think Pulp, who had been around for years before "Common People" and "Disco 2000" catapulted them into the big time; or No Doubt, who had several albums out before "Don't Speak" did it for them. Others aren't so luckly, they bubble around for a year or two, deserving more but losing out to technobollocks and over-hyped crap before they have to call time. How much talent have we lost, how much great music went unheard? How much utter shite have we had to put up with instead!
WHO WERE SARACEN? Back in the 1980s in the UK, heavy rock/hard rock was in its heyday - it even had a name and an acronym! NWOBHM - New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, encompassing all from Status Quo to Motorhead. Dozens of young bands were emerging as the next "big things", but most were just repeating the same formula, trying to sound like Iron Maiden, or believing that "the faster and heavier the better".
One or two did something different and stood out. One of them was Saracen.
Saracen were gigging the "up and coming" circuit; they signed to one of several "up and coming" record labels who put them into a studio to record their debut album. "Heroes, Saints and Fools" was the result. Sadly it was not the success it should have been- due at least partly to lack of promotion and support by the small record company. One look at the album cover and you will know that the record company did not spend megabucks on the band. Fools. If only they had....
How to describe them? Melodic Rock? Soft Rock? Cerebral power pop-rock? The band preferred "symphonic rock", so who am I to argue.
Who do they sound like? I'm sure that somewhere there is a band that sound like Saracen; if so, please let me know. If you imagine crossing Marillion with Bon Jovi and add in some Deep Purple you would not be a million miles out.
HEROES SAINTS AND FOOLS Playing in Saracen on this album were: Rob Bendelow on guitar, the band leader and the song writer Steve Bettney on vocals Richard Lowe on keyboards and backing vocals Barry Yates on bass guitar and backing vocals John Thorne on drums
The album opens with with a single keyboard chord fading in. The drums and guitar come in, and "Crusader" starts. It begins slow and plodding, then picks up some tempo for the second verse. After the second chorus there is a sudden change of pace, a new riff and it leaps into a fast final verse, keyboard solo and last chorus with extra harmony vocals. The song finishes with a short and impressive drum cadenza.
The second song, "Rock Of Ages" is an upbeat, simple, rock anthem with a catchy riff and chorus. This could so easily have been a world wide hit, but.... The budget recording shows as the drums start slightly quicker than the guitar (!) but so what, it is a great rock song. "Who built the rock of ages? Tell me coz I wasn't there. Whoever it was, gave us a dream we can share."
"No More Lonely Nights" is a midtempo riff-driven MOR rock song. It is a good-time popster, about having a good time in the city at night. This was a single (with "Rock of Ages" on the B side) which was how I first heard the band. This is the first time we hear a guitar solo by Bendelow, and it shows he is a capable axeman.
"Horsemen of the Apocalypse" is a perfect example of a great Saracen song. It is introduced by a drum riff, followed by the keyboards, then the bass kicks in, making it sound even darker, and lastly the guitar overlays a simple but effective riff giving a slightly sinister feel to the song. The vocals join, a song about the four horsement: Famine, Plague, War and Death. After two verses and a middle eighth, the song softens, an acoustic replaces the rock electric guitar for another verse, after which it accelerates faster than before, just for everything to drop out except the guitar introducing the third movement with a classic Bendelow lick, progressing into a short and sweet solo. The last verse is repeated, rising and slowing to a crescendo. Great Stuff.
"Heroes, Saints and Fools", the title track, is the story of a young boy who is presented with three choices in life: to become a hero, a saint or a fool. It starts with a church organ, joined by acoustic guitar. Two short verses in the sound switches, the pace picks up under a muted guitar riff, and the "hero", the "saint" and "fool" each present their case to the child. The whole song kicks back into life, as the boy pleads that he doesn't want to be any of these things, and the music rocks up reflecting the inner turmoil. After a short, slow guitar solo the boy turns round and takes the road for home, but the song continues through a few more tempo changes, another guitar solo, to the final conclusion.
"Dolphin Ride" is a stunning instrumental, centred around an exchange between keyboards and guitar swapping a melody and harmonising with eachother, over a mid tempo drum and bass rhythm. It is a song to lie back, shut your eyes and imagine the ocean waves...
"Ready to Fly" a good time rock song, starting with a a long lead in to a good rock riff. From here it drives forward through two verses and choruses. It pauses for breath for a few seconds in a short slow, middle eighth, in which they promise: "Though now we leave you, we shall return Again to fly, higher and higher and high." From here Rob Bendelow launches into a superb guitar solo several minutes long, building and rising to the final crescendo.
The first time I heard the album I sat in silence for several minutes thinking, "wow". Once I had the chance to see them, at a rock club in West London, but I passed it up thinking that I would see them on the next tour. It never happened. The album was, inexplicably, not successful and the band fragmented. Two of the members did produce a weaker follow up album called "Change of Heart" then in 1985 they disbanded.
The album, "Heroes Saints and Fools", was to my mind a milestone. If it had succeeded, as it deserved to, we would have dozens of Saracen sound-alikes. It didn't, and we don't. That is our loss.
PS. In 2002 Saracen reformed and have released a new album, "Red Sky" and plan two more at least including a re-release of Heroes, Saints and Fools. If you like rock of any kind, do yourself a favour and pick up a copy!
Advantages: A superb, creative band back together Disadvantages: Had to wait nearly 20 years!
"Legends tell of a world that our distant fathers knew
Though we look from afar there's a light that shines on you"
So starts Red Sky, the long awaited (by me anyway) comeback album by 80s symphonic rockers, Saracen.
Back in the eighties there were a lot of rock bands who almost made it big. Of all of them, the ones who most deserved it were Saracen. Their debut album, Heroes, Saints and Fools was a masterpiece, which should have become one of the most ground breaking albums of the decade but was sadly passed over. The band split up shortly afterwards.
However, last year, guitarist and main man Rob Bendelow got the band back together again in the wake of a rather impressive solo album, Come To The Light.
Red Sky is the result, twelve songs of which four are from the original two Saracen albums, a fifth is an old Saracen ...
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