To say Savage Grace have been at this a long time is to do them something of a disservice. Their history stretches back to an appearance on the legendary Metal Massacre II compilation, while Master Of Disguise and After The Fall From Grace earned their place in the affections of anyone with a taste for proper American heavy metal.
Heavy metal being the important bit here.
The band originally disbanded in 1992, and their third studio album, Sign Of The Cross, didn’t arrive until 2023. By those standards, getting their fourth, Underworld, out in 2026 represents almost indecent haste. Christian Logue has clearly got plenty left to say, and he knows precisely how he wants to say it.
Not for nothing does the siren sound at the beginning of “White Trash, White Heat”. They’re off, they’re running, and that scream leaves you in absolutely no doubt about what you’ve let yourself in for. The sheer commitment to metal is what grabs you. Every riff, every howl, every moment suggests that this music means everything to the people playing it.
The title track brings a properly dystopian atmosphere, finding something threatening beneath all that energy. This is metal the way it used to be, the way it still is, and the way it will probably remain long after the rest of us have gone.
By the time “Three Ways To Heaven” gets going, you’ve little choice but to get swept along. There’s an enthusiasm here that makes resistance seem rather pointless. “Destiny Damour” underlines it further: this sounds like a band for whom there is nothing they would rather be doing than playing these songs.
There are shifts within that approach, too. “Valley Of Fire” brings more groove and a little less bombast, although quite how those high notes are reached remains a question for somebody with a better understanding of human anatomy than me. “Way Back From Love” follows — and aren’t we all looking for one of those? — with guitars that slash through everything in their path.
Metal has always been inquisitive. For all the assumptions made about it, this music has long questioned what’s going on behind the curtain, and “Bad Day In Hell” rails against the hidden powers with the requisite conviction. You suspect that accepting things quietly has never been particularly high on the Savage Grace agenda.
“Have A Good Time All The Time” offers a little light relief, and across the record the solos are so good that they become another reason to keep coming back. Logue’s guitar playing has both the skill and the enthusiasm to make this stuff matter.
Then there’s “Hard Times In Hollywood”, which is simply a brilliant metal song. Sometimes you can spend ages trying to explain why something works when the answer is sitting right there in front of you.
The celebration continues through “On The Run” and “Love Never Comes When You Want It To”, before “Magic By Day, Tricks By Night” brings proceedings to a close. There are things in that last one that might even make me blush, if I’m honest. Decades into this, they’ve retained a healthy appetite for misbehaviour.
Sebastian Hauser has the perfect voice for it all, meeting Logue’s guitars with exactly the sort of commitment these songs demand. He sounds entirely at home here.
I’m fairly convinced that when the apocalypse finally arrives, and Trump and his cronies have driven the rest of us into the ground, the surviving forces will be the conglomerates, AI, cockroaches and heavy metal.
On this evidence, Savage Grace will still be playing it.
A brilliant metal record from people who know exactly what they’re doing — and still sound thrilled to be doing it.
Rating: 8/10
