Running Wild
Resilient

A mess. That's how the fans of Running Wild, including myself, felt after listening to "Shadowmaker". An album released after the supposed retirement of the German band, a retirement that didn't even last two years. The disappointment was immense, hearing a flat, boring album, devoid of any interesting ideas, made just to bring the name of Running Wild back into relevance and generate some money.

Sure, if we look back to 2009, the announcement that the band led by Rolf Kasparek was going to disband caused not a small amount of sadness. But had I known that three years later the band would reform with only Kasparek as the original member and would release one of the worst albums of their career, all the sadness would have vanished. Not that the lack of ideas was anything new for Running Wild. For more than a decade, the most famous pirates of metal had shown a certain disinterest in their albums, notably "The Brotherhood" (2002) and "Victory" (1999), albums with bland sounds and texts that were appalling. Adding to this was the fact that Kasparek no longer wanted to tour and dedicate himself to his band, which quickly explains their temporary retirement. This weariness was also evident in the celebratory live "The Final Jolly Roger", with a performance that seemed to say "Let's hurry, I want to go home!"

The announcement of a new album after just over a year from the already mentioned "Shadowmaker" gave fans of the band some hope, but above all, what was expected from the next album was one thing, redemption. To finally hear a product that sounded in the style of the group, as hadn't been heard since the distant "Masquerade", no longer to hear that damned digital drum in the background, in short, an album worth listening to.

Thus, in 2013 "Resilient" was released, which finally seemed, at least on the surface, to be a typical album of the band. The cover, above all, portraying the mascot Adrian, and no longer that sort of Darth Vader that was present on "Shadowmaker", and even the lyrics finally appropriate to the attitude of Running Wild, swept away memories of pieces like "Me & The Boys" or "I Am Who I Am".

Alas, not even a few seconds into listening to "Soldiers Of Fortune" we can ascertain that the digital drum has made no hint at departing, and that the phantom Angelo Sasso, a pseudonym invented by Kasparek to cover up the use of a computer-programmed drum, the piece fortunately can be listened to quite smoothly showcasing great bass performance by Kasparek, who also handled the main guitar parts along with the second guitarist Peter Jordan. The shadow of the old Running Wild can be heard again in monotonous songs like the Title-Track, and "Down To The Wire". And to say that Kasparek described these pieces in interviews before the album as the most powerful of the album. "Run Riot" and "The Drift" reignite that spark after years that Running Wild seemed to have lost forever, with the first one even featuring a nice chorus that seems to have come out of a more modern Helloween album. "Adventure Highway" succeeds halfway in its task, because while on one hand it is an excellent piece surrounded by a nice riff, the text is not exactly its strongest point:

"Check out the mirror and say, I'll do my way

Yes, I will be true to the roots of Rock 'n Roll!"

"Crystal Gold" is a track that, although reminiscent in style of the songs from "Shadowmaker", manages to create its own characterization, leading us audibly safe and sound to the grand finale, "Bloody Island", with a duration of almost 9 minutes and that evokes without much ado the magnificent "Treasure Island". Let's be clear, it does not succeed at all in making the listener relive the magic of the latter piece, but it has a very 80's atmosphere, even though the drum makes it undoubtedly the best piece of the album.

"Resilient" in the end is neither a horrible album, nor a perfect one, but is simply what Running Wild needed to not lose the respect of their fans permanently and not fall once and for all into the banality that already reigned supreme in some albums released that year. On one hand, we have production on the edge of decency, a drum that, as already mentioned, is quite annoying in some parts, and a sovereign egoism on the part of Kasparek, on the other hand, it is nice to note that the German band has not lost its shine and that it is capable of writing and composing (some) pieces still worthy of note. We don't know for how long, but I'm fine with that.