After a small intro "à la" Gutter Ballet, Stay With Me Awhile opens the door. In the pure Savatage tradition, this song is heavy and the vocals of Jon Oliva (following the departure of Zachary Stevens) is accentuated even more this "back to the future" feeling. I am still wondering by the way why Savatage didn't used always this voice (the one of Jon Oliva)??? Understand who can!

Let come back to Poets And Madmen. As usual with Savatage, many plays are required before really entering and digesting their record. There are so many moments, so many atmospheres that it is simply impossible to catch them all on first play. All Savatage records grow in you ... many weeks after. Normally, I am waiting 3 to 4 months before expressing myself about their last work.

There In The Silence is a heavy song and the listener goes from Gutter Ballet to more powerful stuff. This time, some errors made on The Wake Of Magellan & Dead Winter Dead (previous records) have been erased: I am talking about the progressive parts Savatage was using before. I don't know who decided to take them out but its is gone (hope forever!). This time we are talking of power metal (heavier like never before, I Seek Power).

This concept album (who said again?) is dark to the bones (Commissar, third song), atmospheric and epic (Morphine Child) and somehow Poets And Madmen reminds me Rage (Ghost record). I don't know who has write these eleven songs (no booklet with the promos), but I congratulate the whole band for this great piece of metal. No boring moments ... just sometimes this feeling to here the same guitar riff, but as I said before I need much more time to fully digest this piece of metal.

Die-hard fans will again talk of masterpiece in the metal history ... I prefer to say that this new Savatage is a good one. Full stop.