It’s time for another re-release of old VIRGIN STEELE albums. The first two albums of the long running Epic Metal band from New York are due again this time, two early and thus pioneering US Metal albums. The latest version of the albums are subtitled “The Anniversary Edition” which leaves the question: what anniversary? Their 40th was two resp. one year ago, as the self-titled first album saw the light of day in 1982 and “Guardians Of The Flame” was released a year later. In correspondence with the anniversary character of these editions, the songs also received a so-called “Anniversary Re-Mix” which made my antennae quiver. After all, VIRGIN STEELE mastermind David DeFeis is responsible for some of the strangest and most awful remixes in Metal history. As far as “Guardians Of The Flame” is concerned, my fears were soon laid to rest. Asides from a slightly changed intro piece to the opening ‘Don’t Say Goodbye (Tonight)’, there were no modifications to the original songs. In fact, the remixes sound quite fine and pretty clear, giving the songs more dimensions than the original mix. Musically, “Guardians Of The Flame” is the most Metal sounding album of VIRGIN STEELE, as the Epic Metal era of the band hasn’t really started, yet it was already on the horizon and some songs like ‘The Redeemer’, the piano-based ballad ‘A Cry In The Night’ or the title track already hinted on the direction the musical evolution of VIRGIN STEELE took after this album. The main reason why “Guardians Of The Flame” sounds more like Classic Metal is guitar player Jack Starr, who left the band after this album following disputes about the musical direction of VIRGIN STEELE. Songs like ‘Burn The Sun’, ‘Metal City’ and ‘Hell Or High Water’ really sound a lot like the songs Jack Starr recorded with his band BURNING STARR in the second half of the 1980s. Thus “Guardians Of The Flame” was and still is a solid early US Metal album with only one dead loss of a song, as ‘Go All The Way’ is absolutely unbearable cheesy sob-stuff. As every VIRGIN STEELE re-release needs loads of bonus tracks, “Guardians Of The Flame” features no less than seven of them. ‘Chaos Caprice’ is a short instrumental, a piano solo that is a left over from the original recording sessions and is of no real importance, but also won’t do any harm. But the three exclusive songs that were used on the EPs “A Cry In The Night“ and “Wait For The Night”, released accompanying “Guardians Of The Flame”, are of course quite interesting, especially as ‘I Am The One’ appears to be the highlight of the whole release: a very great Metal song with epic moments and even hints on very early MARILLION stuff. ‘Go Down Fighting’ and ‘Wait For The Night’ are surely worth listening to as well. The final three tracks of the Anniversary Edition are not! I surely love ‘Desert Plains’, as it is one of my personal faves from JUDAS PRIEST, but VIRGIN STEELE did a foozled cover version here that won’t get any better as an “Alternate Vocals Version”. ‘Dirty Blonde Angel’ is a fresh recording that was written after “Noble Savage” about 1987 and should have stayed unrecorded and unreleased because it is another of these wanky disastrous Hard Rock songs VIRGIN STEELE are infamous for. Finally we have another fresh recording called ‘The Heaven’s Door Suite’ which is a completely failed attempt to combine a classic song (Bob Dylans ‘Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door’) with new music. No one needs to hear such crappy experiments! So, asides from the awful three tracks in the end, “Guardians Of The Flame – The Anniversary Edition” is a quite worthy re-release that should be of interest for aficionados of classic US Metal. www.facebook.com/virginsteeleofficial, www.facebook.com/spvsteamhammer