In all honesty, I did not think Peavy still had a full good album left in him. Recent years have shown that he still knows how to write a good song with an excellent chorus, but ‘Resurrection Day’ is easily the best Rage album since 2003’s ‘Soundchaser’, possibly since the mid-nineties. It almost sounds like singer and bassist Peter ‘Peavy’ Wagner for the first time in years had no clear vision for the album prior to writing it and ended up combining the best elements of Rage’s different eras, resulting in an album that convinces nearly all the way through.

When guitarist Marcos Rodríguez left Rage last year, I thought the band lost a major asset. Even more so than his playing, his voice provided Rage with plenty of opportunities to broaden their sound significantly. He has been replaced by two guitarists – Jean Bormann and Stefan Weber – and while I don’t know how much that impacted the songwriting, there is a freshness to ‘Resurrection Day’ that had been missing since the last time Rage had two guitarists in the late nineties. The subtle hardrock touches from those days are present on ‘Resurrection Day’, though it is very much an old school German power metal album.

Though Rage had albums I liked in recent years, ‘Seasons Of The Black’ most prominently, I was a bit apprehensive about ‘Resurrection Day’ and that was partly due to the fact that the second single ‘Monetary Gods’ is not a very good song. It’s decent enough, but its atrocious chorus does not do it any favors. Fortunately, that is pretty much the only dud in the bunch, although having two semi-ballads right after each other in ‘Travelling Through Time’ and ‘Black Room’ was not the smartest idea. Both of them are fine, the latter is even quite good, but spreading them out over the album a little more would have benefitted its flow.

Being a German power metal album, there are some upbeat moments that will probably work well in the live environment, ‘A New Land’ and the title track being the best of them, but ‘Resurrection Day’ really shines during its slightly more melancholic moments. ‘Arrogance And Ignorance’, ‘Man In Chains’ and ‘The Age Of Reason’ all contain this yearning for better days feeling that characterizes Rage’s best work, resulting in the best consecutive fourteen minutes on the record. First single ‘Virginity’ is another fantastic song. Like the awesome closer ‘Extinction Overkill’, it has some of the thrashier riffs Rage has done in a long time, but not without a memorable chorus like only Peavy Wagner can do them.

‘Resurrection Day’ is far better than I could have expected in this phase of Rage’s career. And unlike many bands that follow the same formula as Rage, most of the songs have not lost any of their appeal after repeated listens. It does not happen often that a band’s twenty-fifth album is of a similar level as their classic work. While it is not quite as good as the highlights on ‘Black In Mind’ and ‘End Of All Days’, ‘Resurrection Day’ profits from being well over ten minutes shorter than those albums, thus being a more concise listening experience. Anyone who gave up on Rage a while ago should definitely give ‘Resurrection Day’ a shot. It might surprise you as much as it surprised me.

Recommended tracks: ‘Arrogance And Ignorance’, ‘Man In Chains, ‘Virginity’, ‘Extinction Overkill’