Shadowmaker - Running Wild - 2-LP

The (relatively short) break before the retirement from the retirement has obviously done Rolf Kasparek good: Running Wild's comeback album "Shadowmaker" is a real smasher! Not too many people have expected that. But was Rolf himself so sure that he'd be able to pull a good one off this time? And what is a "creative break", anyway? Did he go on a vacation in the Caribbean Sea? Turn his back to the music biz? Not even enjoyed listening to his musical heroes any more? Rolf laughs: "Nope, it wasn't that bad anyway. I just had noticed that song writing didn't come as easy to me as in the past when I was doing the last Running Wild-Album "Rogues en vogue". Everything took a lot of time and in the end, it was a pretty tedious process. Because of that I had taken a leave of absence from Running Wild. Nevertheless, I still made some music, but with other bands: Toxic Taste and Giant X. For Toxic Taste, I wrote 80 songs within half a year - and 15 of them made it to the CD. At some point after the end of Running Wild, we had the idea of re-releasing our old records which originally had been released by Modern Music and had been out of stock for a long time. Of course, we needed some bonus songs for that. Well, I didn't intend to write new Running Wild songs after the retirement, so hesitated to collect some ideas at first, but I soon noticed that the songs came together almost as spontaneously as the ones for Toxic Taste. But these songs were much too strong to become only bonus tracks. I finished the first four tracks really fast, and I didn't even plan it to go that way. But I already thought: "Hey, this is almost half a Running Wild album!" Like any great (Metal) album, "Shadowmaker" consists of stringent and coherent compositions. But often, genre gems have one surprising song to top them off - when Maiden released "Run to the hills" as a single in 1982, it was a total contrast to the material on "Killers" - but maybe that's why it became such an evergreen, after all...
Well, Running Wild will get mixed reactions to "Me and the boys". The anthemic character of "Chains and leather" or "Under Jolly Roger" is cranked up to the commercial maximum in this song. I really like it, but some people may find it cheesy. Maybe even so cheesy that you can't avoid singing along (just think of "I was made for loving you")!? Wasn't Rolf concerned that the track maybe wouldn't fit into the Running Wild concept at any point? "I knew that people would talk about this song", he says. "But so far, I just got positive reactions. Without any doubt it is no typical Running Wild song, and I definitely paid tribute to the heroes of my youth, Slade, on this one. The track is taken from the lot of the Toxic Taste songs - I thought it was too tough for Toxic Taste, too Metal. It is a kind of Metal anthem, that's right. If you must compare it to another song of Running Wild, it would most probably be "Chains and leather". Anyway, you won't forget the chorus - it's called "Ohrwurm" - ear worm - in Germany, meaning some thing you don't get out of your ears and mind." The second song sticking out on "Shadowmaker" is titled "Dracula", a very long and intricate track. Musically, it is one of the most complex compositions in the history of Running Wild. Does Rolf agree with that? "I don't know", he answers honestly. "Even if the track is pretty complex - when I was writing it, it was like a puzzle, piece after piece found its place in the complete picture. I thought that I would need three or four days for the arrangement and had planned accordingly, but after all, the track was done in two hours. Two parts were even miscues that I had made. But I found the idea so great that I just worked them in. Even if "Dracula" is structured in a very complex way, you really don't mind and don't notice the length - almost eight minutes - of it."