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,
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
,
delivers an album that is melodic, ambitious, often operatic and consistently absorbing.
Jon Oliva
, who had co-founded
with brother
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,
dedicated
to
' memory. ~ Alex Henderson