Running Wild: Under Jolly Roger (1987)

It took me a long time to discover Running Wild's music.  I had always heard about them of course, the German band is a major influence in the power and speed metal genres.  Running Wild is often mentioned in the same breath as Blind Guardian and Helloween when discussing the origins of power metal.  But so much of their material was hard to find and out of print, so it took a long time to find anything.  That started to change last year and this is now the third album by Running Wild in my collection, joining Death or Glory and Blazon Stone.  This is also the earliest of the albums in my collection and was one of my primary targets when I began looking into Running Wild's music.

This album may be Running Wild's first to take on the pirate theme that the band would become well-known for.  I could be wrong about that, but it is certainly when the theme became the most obvious.  This is obviously different than groups like Alestorm, who take the pirate theme to the next level, but Running Wild did have a strong lyrical theme about pirates.  It showed through in the title track here which also featured various sound effects to sound like cannon blasts.

The songs are here are melodic, yet heavy and catchy as all hell.  There are a number of fist-pumping choruses that make the listener stand up and take notice, including the obvious "Raise Your Fist" and then "Beggar's Night" and "Raw Ride".  The riffs take obvious influence from the likes of Accept, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest and there are some incredibly impressive galloping guitar solos as well.  The guitars are of course the major drawing card on this album, but the rhythm section shines through as well and is a bit of an underrated part of the band.  The vocals are delivered in kind of a sneering snarl, but are still quite melodic and powerful.

I am still in the process of discovering Running Wild, but this is my favorite album to date.  It packs a punch while retaining an infectious melodic sound.  The pirate theme is not all-consuming at this point, as only a couple of songs deal with pirates.  It is an interesting theme, and at the time was definitely unusual.  This album is a lot of fun and is influential for a very good reason.  This is a great example of what power metal from Europe used to sound like, back when "power" was the operative word.  I will be continuing to explore Running Wild in the future, I have a long way to go.