Reviews list for Rage - Black in Mind (1995)

My experience with prolific German metal stalwarts Rage has been fairly limited up until now with my only dedicated investigation of their music being capped at the band’s 1986 debut album “Reign of Fear”, a release that didn’t impress me much if I’m being honest. I struggled with the inconsistencies in quality & particularly with the vocals of bass-playing front man Peter “Peavy” Wagner so I’ve never felt too much encouragement to explore the ridiculously extensive Rage back catalogue further. I’ve recently noticed a fair bit of fanfare around Rage’s 1995 ninth full-length “Black in Mind” though so I decided to give the Germans another chance. It’d been almost a decade since their first-up effort after all so one could only imagine that they’d matured somewhat in that time. Time would tell though.

The production job is pretty good & presents the songs with a metal-as-fuck aesthetic that affords the material every chance of winning me over, even if power metal releases often face an up-hill battle with me. “Black in Mind” is quite an ambitious & diverse example of the German power metal model though. It’s 69-minute run time can be fairly daunting, particularly for someone like myself that’s not usually all that fond of the European strand of the genre, but there are plenty of stylistic changes throughout the fourteen-song tracklisting to keep one from getting bored. Despite the tendency to genre-hop a bit, I think the power metal genre is still the only primary tag required to describe “Black in Mind”. There are notable heavy metal & thrash metal components included & both are significant enough to mention but I don’t think either are a true representation of the overall sound you can expect to here from this record.

Although not as overt as I found on “Reign of Fear”, “Black in Mind” still suffers from largely the same flaws. The consistency of the song-writing isn’t great with four or five obvious filler tracks tainting my holistic impression of the album. While Wagner’s vocals may have improved over the previous decade, I still wouldn’t say that they’re amazing & find that they actually work to the detriment of some of these pieces. It's interesting that the back half of the album tends to be much heavier on the power metal than the A side which is a mixture of heavy metal, thrash metal & speed metal apart from the epic ten minutes of “In A Nameless Time”. I tend to favour the heavy metal material here with “The Icecold Hand of Destiny” being my clear favourite track followed by “The Crawling Chaos” & speed metal burner “Sent by the Devil”. I find “Shadow Out of Time”, “Until I Rage” & the popular opening title track to be pretty flat though while cheesy power metal number “Forever” falls a long way from my taste profile. Let’s not even mention “Alive But Dead” as it’s just fucking awful so you can see that a good third of the tracklisting doesn’t offer me much in the way of appeal.

“Black in Mind” certainly isn’t horrible & I did get some enjoyment out of the majority of its lengthy run time to tell you the truth but there’s no doubt that it's too long & I feel that even a small amount of culling might have seen me awarding it a more acceptable score. As it is though, I can’t say that I found the experience all that rewarding. I'd definitely take “Black in Mind” over “Reign of Fear” but not by as much as most fans would probably think & it surprises me that this is thought to be Rage’s best release as that doesn’t exactly say a lot about their gazillion & one other albums. Perhaps Rage (& European power metal in general) simply aren’t for me but I feel good about the fact that I’ve given “Black in Mind” a good Aussie crack as it has definitely ticked a box that had remained empty for far too long.

For fans of Grave Digger, Running Wild & Avenger.

Daniel / September 05, 2024 10:54 PM

I imagine, since power metal is such a popular genre, that many non-power fans would be put off by the 70-minute runtime. I know I was. Then again, one of my desert island albums is 70-minutes long, but it was a very diversified album, so I couldn't be too quick to judge. I played this after not having heard it for at least a couple of years. Hell I haven't heard it since my second power metal album binge. I had hoped that the length wouldn't ruin anything, as the album seemed to have a lot of different genre tags attached.

Rage just blasts in your ear right when the album turns on. A very Kursch-esque singer, Peter Wagner, gets right on maximizing the capacity of his masculine voice without overdoing it. This title track here is a full-blown THRASH SONG, and it blatantly shows, probably even too blatantly. So I know heaviness isn't a problem, and if Rage knows what they're doing then they'll be able to keep up with the 65-minute album Black Hand Inn by Running Wild, which is very similar in genre, heaviness and tone. "The Crawling Chaos," however, seemed like it was just continuing where the title track left off but with a slower tempo, so I didn't fall in love with this song. Then "Alive But Dead" came on with its low acoustic intro and deep near-growls used in a rhythmic monotone. It doesn't take long for the song to turn into a darker thrash metal tune, but the process of evolution is carefully handled and perfectly timed. The song relies on mood and the mood is effortlessly brutal and full of the band's namesake. "Sent By the Devil" is kinda monotone, which is a little annoying, but it's great to have speed play a major role in the song after a cool, slower-moving one and have the consistency of the album stay perfectly fine. That's something Black Hand Inn didn't do. But as far as writing goes, this is total filler, proving that the album is too long.

"Shadow Out of Time" picks the album right back up with its sense of angel and its rhythm. Here the band focuses on trying to write something worth listening to. The solo guitarist, however, seems more focuses on wanking on his guitar rather than focusing on the quality of the solo, and only when another guitar overlaps with it does it focus on melody. "A Spider's Web" is only three minutes, and speed metal influence is obvious, with little hints of prog metal to give it a unique flair during the verses while the bridges and chorus are focuses on a punk-infused speed sound. Honestly, this was the most impressive song thus far, and has the best solo of the first few tracks. "In a Nameless Time" is a ten minute epic building itself on the monotony of atmosphere and effects, and once Wagner gets half-singing half-whispering, the slow thrashing begins before the thrashing bridge begins, and this cycle of verse and bridge continues into a melodic thrash-power chorus that progresses like a lyrical poem. Obviously, darkness and mood are the dominant factors here, as the verses feel pretty doomy. The midtro, however, is taken by acoustic guitar and violin for some sort of fancy "power epic" purpose, but it feels a little out of place, and that's the closest we get to a guitar solo in its ten-minute run. However, once the thrashing starts up again, the heaviest part of the song begins, and the thrashiness is at level 10.

"The Icecold Hand Of Destiny" is a straight-up heavy metal song by every definition. Decent rhythm, moderate tempo and lots of heaviness work for the song, but it doesn't stand out enough to be anything but filler, but the second half has a good guitar solo and the song gets a little proggy, so that's good. "Forever" is a more straight-up power metal song. Its opening riff feels exactly like something from an F-Zero game, notably GP Legend. However, once the riff ends, the deeper guitars and thrashing drums take over, so I had to wonder how these two genres would mingle. Once they did, the guitars playing the opening riff were too low-tuned and drowned out in the chorus to really matter, so the riff itself lost its effect, but the instrumentation and rhythms are still very good. :Until I Die" starts with an incredibly rhythmic speed metal riff, and gets right down to the signature tropes of the genre, including tempo, layout and jam factor. But considering how no other song on the album sounded like this, the surprise was pleasant. The heaviness never once suffered. It continues with "My Rage," which is more focused on being as heavy in guitar tone as possible, not relying on speed to express this, and as the shortest song on the album it doesn't get tiring.

"The Price of War" starts of with rhythmic thrashing which, I'd have to say, boasts some of the catchier thrashing on the album. And this song has one of the best solos on the album, which is a big sigh of relief because guitar solos obviously are not a strong point on this album. "Start" goes right back to the power metal sound that Rage is associated with, but it's a very standard song that I wouldn't repeat again. And finally, we get to the finale, "All This Time." Like many other power metal albums, this song acts like a ballad and even carries some symphonic influence in the mix. It's doing whatever it can to be an actual ending to a lengthy album, and from a melodic and moody perspective, it does just that. I wish, however, there were more songs like this on the album.

Honestly, I'm not sure why this is there most popular album. It seems like the filler often gets in the way of it progressing as a noteworthy power metal album. The heaviness is incredible, and that drives the whole album, and Wagner gives it his all in every song. Let's not forget how utterly diversified the album is. The issue here is that it's got such obvious flaws despite how enjoyable it is. The solos aren't great and the filler is obvious. Thankfully, there isn't A LOT of filler, and the pros are undeniable. If you've got 70 minutes to spare, this album's worth checking out once or twice.