Although they may not go by the
Savatage moniker, Jon Oliva's Pain reflects the aforementioned band's knack for anthemic metal with a heavy progressive edge. Also, comparisons to
Savatage are inevitable when you have the group's longest-tenured singer, Jon Oliva, at the helm. Their third full-length overall, 2006's
Maniacal Renderings, brings to mind an era when metalheads favored skin-tight jeans, white high-top sneakers, and leather jackets (ahem, the late '80s, in case you didn't know). But unlike most metal bands that lean towards the proggier side of things, Oliva doesn't utilize oft-annoying, over-the-top operatic vocal shtick. Instead, his voice brings to mind
Alice Cooper on such tracks as "Time to Die," while musically, tunes like the album opening "Through the Eyes of the King" sound like less-crazed, vintage
Megadeth. And the group even manages to sneak in a power ballad, to boot, with "The Answer." With some newer metal bands coming off like a bad imitation of late-'80s metal,
Maniacal Renderings often sounds precisely like what some of these young cubs are striving for. ~ Greg Prato