Rage
Lingua Mortis

THE REVIEW

It's difficult to write a review on 'Lingua Mortis,' yet I felt compelled to write one when I noticed that no one had yet done so. In fact, I’m convinced that nothing deserves to be known more by anyone who loves good music than this album... but enough with the praises because it could go on endlessly. I apologize in advance if I'm unable to express myself the way I would like to speak about this masterpiece.

As I was saying, it's not easy to describe this work, as we aren't faced with the usual RAGE album and their always effective bone-crushing Teutonic power metal. In fact, we aren't even dealing with a metal album in the strict sense, but with something more. It's enough to insert the CD into the player to realize it: metal songs played by an orchestra.
NOTE WELL: we're not talking about a Symphonic Metal album or an album featuring arrangements with some violin… we are talking about Metal songs played almost entirely by the Prague Symphony Orchestra, to whom Peavy Wagner turned. How can the union of two majestic genres (even if in different ways) not be majestic in itself?

Right from “In A Nameless Time” (from Black In Mind), you realize you're listening to something unique: the metallic bursts of the guitars are replaced by strings and winds, the drums are overshadowed by the timpani, and the guitars are only heard at a few (but great) moments. One might think that the song loses its charge… nothing could be further from the truth, the orchestra gives an even more solemn tone and unheard power to RAGE’s music composed only for the sector’s canonical instruments… the result is a grand sound hardly describable in words. “Alive But Dead” (Black In Mind) demonstrates the genius of Peavy’s arrangements, managing not to lose a bit of the darkness of the original song and making it, while less aggressive, much more effective. But it is with the “Medley” that the tears come, and certainly not of sadness. An emotional piano loop on the notes of “Don’t Fear The Winter” opens this 15-minute track that includes recent and older pieces by the German group, quickly followed by a moving version of “Black In Mind,” simply chilling.

The orchestra takes over and gives us a snippet of “Firestorm” instrumental, before making way for the splendid “Sent By The Devil,” like all the other songs on 'Lingua Mortis,' the orchestra shines a new light on this gem from Black In Mind as well. But when “Lost In The Ice” starts, you call it a miracle, fingers run across the piano and immediately the violins join in unison and form an unparalleled melody, almost floating in the air, but RAGE remembers they are still a metal band and it’s time for Sven Fischer’s solo over a pressing and cadenced melody that closes this “Medley.” In a word: immense.
The last actual song is the touching ballad “All This Time,” similar to the original found on Black In Mind but undoubtedly very successful. The final track is a sort of tribute to the Orchestra, an instrumental version of “Alive But Dead” that closes 'Lingua Mortis.'

I know very well that I probably failed to fully describe or convey this work through the review… but that’s where the essence of Lingua Mortis lies, it's a work of art that simply escapes any form of definition. I only hope that someone might at least be intrigued and want to experience the emotions this album conveys with every listen, I assure you it's worth it. This way, perhaps, you might rediscover metal or classical music, because in fact that's what it's about, Metal and Classical Music perfectly fused that reinforce each other. And forgive me if it's little.