Dead Winter Dead

Performer: Savatage
Engineer: Mike Scielzi; Ken Lewis; Chris Curran; Brian Bonehead Kinkead; Julio Pena; Tim Hatfield; Bob Kinkel
Producer: Jon Oliva; Paul O'Neill
Distributor: WEA (Distributor)

Notes: Savatage includes: Chris Caffery, Al Pitrelli (guitar); Jeff Plate (drums). DEAD WINTER DEAD is a concept album about three people living in wartime Bosnia. Personnel: Jon Oliva (vocals, keyboards); Zachary Stevens (vocals); Chris Caffery, Al Pitrelli (guitar); Mary Wooten (cello); Bob Kinkel (keyboards); Jeff Plate (drums). Audio Mixer: Dave Whittman. Recording information: New York, NY (06/1995-08/1995). Photographer: Danny Clinch. With Dead Winter Dead, Savatage returned to rock opera, a format the band had explored previously on Streets. However, with several lineup changes having taken place since that seminal 1991 album, the sound of Dead Winter Dead is quite different. On this album alone, the group have a new drummer in Jeff Platte and a new guitarist in Al Pitrelli. Chris Caffery, the guitarist who had briefly been in the band earlier, also returned to the group's lineup. Musically, Savatage have built upon the musical ground of Handful of Rain with grand but heavy arrangements of theatrical and complex pieces. Both "This Is the Time (1990)" and the closing ballad, "Not What You See," show the strong influence of musicals on the songwriters. Take away the heavy guitars and you have something that could appear in many a Broadway show. Built around a story that takes place during the Balkan War of the early 1990s, the music nicely captures the wide range of emotion that the narrative calls for. While Zachery Stevens provides the vocals for the majority of the album, songwriter and former lead singer Jon Oliva returns on the sinister "I Am," and the almost-rap "Doesn't Matter Anyway," which provides some straight-forward metal in between the more progressive pieces. The instrumentals, "Mozart and Madness" and "Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24)," are surprisingly well-arranged ominous metal versions of classical and traditional Christmas pieces, the latter of which would appear on the first Trans-Siberian Orchestra album. ~ Geoff Orens

Founded in Florida in 1982, Savatage helped spearhead the power metal movement that swept through the 1980s. When the band hooked up with producer Paul O'Neill (Aerosmith, Badlands) for 1987's HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING, Savatage ventured into a new realm of progressive, symphonic metal. In 1995, the band released the conceptual album DEAD WINTER DEAD, which featured the single "Christmas Eve Sarajevo 12/24". The track was a runaway hit, and Savatage launched a side-career under the name Trans-Siberian Orchestra, which focused on rock-infused holiday music. Since then, Savatage has taken a backseat to TSO's wildfire success, although members Jon Oliva and Chris Caffery retain their metal roots with solo material.

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