Going through a lot of personnel changes can make a band's output very erratic -- in the '80s and '90s,
Deep Purple and
Black Sabbath went through so many personnel changes that you never knew if a new album would be decent, mediocre or quite forgettable. But personnel changes haven't prevented
Savatage from being impressively consistent. In 1993,
Savatage suffered a cruel blow when guitarist and founding member
Criss Oliva was killed in a car crash. But the band bounced back nicely with
Handful of Rain, which was the first album it recorded after
Criss' death and found him being replaced by former
Testament guitarist
Alex Skolnick. With a lineup consisting of
Skolnick, singer
Zachary Stevens, bassist
Johnny Lee Middleton and drummer
Steve Wacholz,
Savatage delivers an album that is melodic, ambitious, often operatic and consistently absorbing.
Jon Oliva, who had co-founded
Savatage with brother
Criss back in 1978, is listed as a co-producer and a keyboardist, but not as an actual member. The songs are dramatic, passionate and intense, but they're also quite melodic -- in fact, melody and aggression are equally important on this excellent album. Appropriately,
Savatage dedicated
Handful of Rain to
Criss' memory. ~ Alex Henderson
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