Saviour Machine – Legend Part I

The beginning of “the soundtrack to the end of the world”

Released in 1997, LEGEND I is the third of (currently) six studio albums by California’s Saviour Machine and the first of their LEGEND trilogy, which is actually a tetralogy in execution (four albums). The LEGEND series has been called “the soundtrack to the end of the world” and it does indeed come across as a soundtrack or movie score.

The best album of the series and by the Gothic metal band period is LEGEND III:I (2001) followed by LEGEND III:II (2011). The latter WOULD have easily been their best album, but Massacre Records was forced to release it in an unfinished state due to singer Eric Clayton’s procrastinating or whatever you want to call it (they gave him a freakin’ decade to complete the project, but he just kept dragging his heinie making excuses). Their self-titled debut from 1993 is their third best album, followed by this one.

The problem with LEGEND I is that it takes WAY too long to work up any steam with track after track functioning as a build-up intro to the grand theme. It’s not until the sixth track that we get a conventional song that clocks-in at more than a couple minutes. The ominous opening “Overture” doesn’t even start until a minute of dull sound effects. The next album, LEGEND II (1998), would go overkill with the “soundtrack” approach, forsaking any sense of conventional songs. Thankfully, Eric & the boys learned their lesson and got back on track for the outstanding LEGEND III:I and the incomplete (but still excellent) LEGEND III:II.

The best song here is easily “Gog: The Kings of the North,” which is the eleventh track and worth the price of ission. The rest of the album from this point is quite worthwhile. It’s the whole first half that drags its feet and feels extraneous, but it works as haunting background music if little more.

GRADE: B