This hard rock\/metal concept album is, strangely, inspired by the sci-fi film Scintilla<\/i>, released earlier this year. The seeds of the album were son when one of said film’s producers, drummer Lionel Hicks, approached Saxon to record a song for the soundtrack. From there, a full-blown project (if not quite supergroup) was developed, featuring Hicks, Byford, bassist Anthony Ritchie and producer\/ex- Sabbath guitarist Andy Sneap. <\/p>\n
As a collection of songs it’s pretty good and, with all due respect to Saxon, it’s nice to hear Byford’s distinctive voice in a (slightly) more contemporary-sounding setting than his main band offers. It’s still melodic hard rock, but with far more of a lush, dramatic flavour than Saxon, as well as heavier guitars. Biff is in fine voice throughout and some songs, such as the dynamic Permanence, put his vocals centre-stage far more starkly than usual. Such moments reveal every crack and strain in a far more expressive, impressive way than fans will be used to, showing just what a great vocalist he’s become. Worth checking out, even if you never see the film. <\/p>\n
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This hard rock\/metal concept album is, strangely, inspired by the sci-fi film Scintilla, released earlier this year. The seeds of the album were son when one of said film’s producers, drummer Lionel Hicks, approached Saxon to record a song for the soundtrack. From there, a full-blown project (if not quite supergroup) was developed, featuring \u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8023,"featured_media":182968,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,16],"tags":[],"issue":[10038],"class_list":["post-182967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-album","category-reviews","issue-september-2014"],"apple_news_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\n