Chris Caffery

W.A.R.P.E.D.
Black Lotus Records

4/10: Mostly released material, this ends up being unsatisfactory.

15 Tracks, 72:37;

In what amounts to nothing more than a continuation of an earlier review, Savatage axeman Chris Caffery now gives us the whole story of the freebee addition to his Faces release, known as God Damn War. Well, all along, I thought that I had heard the story. So forgive me if I feel a bit slighted or perturbed that Caffery and Black Lotus immediately went for the cash-grab route by inexplicably repackaging it, and then subsequently released it as if it was completely new material.

Well, there are only six new tracks here. And the title-track was on the US version of Faces, so if you have that version, you get five songs for a full-priced CD. If it were not for the fact that I have a hard time remaining biased and objectionable with all things Savatage, I would really be annoyed. The new tracks are just as good as the rest of the material that you may have heard (Election Day is relentlessly kickass, and Jon Oliva once again lends his voice to a track,) so that's the ultimate plus. But I still don't understand the reasoning behind what seems to be a shady way of snookering the consumer.

Chris Burnham