Yesterday I listened to Crusader for the first time in a VERY long time, and it struck me that this isn´t a bad record at all. Most people only fancy the titletrack (at least a little bit...
, but if you take the time, there´s plenty of good songs: Sailing to America and Do it all for you, softer tunes, both with a great intro and chorus, then there´s catchy rockers like Just let me rock, Rock City and Run for your lives.The guitarwork is as good as ever, not to mention the production. As a matter of fact Crusader feels very stable and balanced if you look at the music-climate during the timeperiod for the release of the record. It kinda anticipates the more melodic/commercial phase Saxon fully went through from Innocence to Destiny, and, this is also what makes Crusader such an interresting album: The songs have a commercial touch yes, but they´re still marked with the unique Saxon sound, thus creating a quite unusual mixture of american orientated early 80´s metal and british boogie/heavy rock.
On top of this it is interresting to notice the very different styles between the titletune and the rest of the songs: Crusader is very anglo-saxon metal, while the rest of the songs are more american orientated and less metal. Not the most obvious combination, but pretty cool though.
And, one more thing... it´s not every day you hear Biff Byford singing "I´ll do anything for you baby"
So, fellow Saxon-fans, time for revaluation?
