Doctor Butcher

S/T (reissue)
Black Lotus Records

9/10: The Doctor returns to the slaughterhouse with great results!

Disc 1: 11 Tracks, 49:45
Disc 2: 5 Tracks, 32:40

A couple years before the Trans-Siberian Orchestra became Savatages' main side-project (kinda hard to call it such now), Savatage frontman Jon Oliva and long-time guitarist Chris Caffery spent many of their off days working on the black sheep of the Savatage empire, Doctor Butcher. Having been released primarily in Europe back in '94, Black Lotus finally manages to officially bring back this little ass-kicker to North America for the first time with some trippy new artwork as well.

For those of you not familiar with the bad Doctor, it is a band that focuses fully on what Savatage likes to be in their heavier moments. Nary a soothing sound is to be found, and it stands to show what Jon Oliva is capable of when it comes to songwriting. It is probably to the point now that many fans have forgotten that 'Tage were immensely adept and capable of writing a riff that doesn't involve a string section. This is surely going to be a brick to the skull for some folks, and those who crave the style of earlier days are certain to immediately break out the air guitar.

The second disc is a collection of one new "old" song that was written back in '93. Called Inspector Highway, it features former Halford and current Testament axeman, "Metal Mike" Clasiak. The rest of the disc contains four "butchered" cuts from their demo CD.

This was a superb metal album, and it still is great today. I'm glad to see that it has finally received the proper treatment in terms of its' availability, because it was criminal that an album like this wasn't received properly the first time around.

Chris Burnham