Unknown Soldier

The Lowdown
Noble Savage would be the breakthrough album from Virgin Steele towards finally consolidating their own unique sound. This New York band would become one of the premier Amercian power metal bands around this time as well, largely thanks to the incorporation of guitarist Edward Pursino an old friend of vocalist and principal songwriter David DeFeis. The Virgin Steele sound was a brand of power metal firmly entrenched between traditional heavy metal and epic rock in the vein of Dio era Rainbow. Blended into their overall sound were touches of symphonic rock, further enhanced by the use of medieval and jazz influences which certainly gives Virgin Steele the metal diversity label with a capital D and this sound would be explored more fully over ensuing albums. The band’s compositions at times were often complex in their arrangements and the band seemed to have no problems in filling out their albums with consistently strong tracks, that drift between muscle style metal efforts and those searching your soul type of track listens that band’s like Queensryche would also excel in. In fact the Queensryche comparison is somewhat interesting as both band’s some years earlier had been tipped for metal stardom some year’s earlier, but up until this moment only Queensryche had hinted at this expectation. Noble Savage would demonstrate a lot of these traits, but by and large its execution is more of a predictable outcome with the band relying on a lot on their own metal influences on a number of the tracks, but of course there are some Virgin Steele nuggets tucked away here. The album cover for Noble Savage could easily be mistaken for something that could’ve adorned a Manowar album, but given that Virgin Streele as a band were pretty much entrenched in Greek mythology the album cover is perfectly acceptable here. The high and mighty starts with “We Rule the Night” which feels like a galloping Iron Maiden track meets Manowar and David DeFeis could easily be mistaken for Bruce Dickinson here as well. “I’m on Fire” with its Van Halen style guitar intro quickly kicks into an Armoured Saint rhythm which means it sounds pretty cool. Rocking staples include the title track “Noble Savage” which is a track I really dig a lot and it’s probably the most ambitious effort on the album. The band showed that they know how to write a catchy metal sounding single with the excellent "The Evil in Her Eyes" which title wise sounds like a nod to Dio era Rainbow and I just love David DeFeis's vocals on this song and everything here works much better than the following "Don't Close Your Eyes". The album closes on the glorious "Angel of Light" a more typical track from the band, despite having some dated keyboard dabblings in places and the searching your soul efforts here come in the brevity of the instrumental “Image of a Faun at Twilight”. A re-issue of the album comes with six bonus tracks which really increases the listening time of the album quite a bit and there are some worthy tracks here as well. Across the album the vocal range of David DeFeis is credible to say the least especially if you’re into that gruffer Bruce Dickinson vocal style and this powerhouse screamer was also a talented artist that played keyboards and piano, was album producer and he was also responsible for writing the lion’s share of the material on the album. Noble Savage remains an important piece in any power metal collection and one of those crucial building bricks of the power metal legacy despite having disparities in its make-up. Despite being a rated album in general, a number of fan reviews for the album rate it as being a flawed effort and not to the height of some of the band’s later releases. Personally I find Noble Savage a credible album whose only drawback might be its references to other artists, which are not always disguised that well. Noble Savage might not fit into a lot of top 10’s in 1986 but it gets into mine because of the band’s importance to the power metal sub-genre.

David DeFeis- Vocals/Keyboards
Edward Pursino- Guitar
Josh Block- Bass
Frank Gilchriest- Drums

Production- David DeFeis

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