Top 10 Songs on Savatage's Handful of Rain
Handful of Rain is the 8th album by Savatage released in 1994 - the first album since the death of their lead guitarist, Criss Oliva, in 1993, and the 2nd one to feature Zachary 'Zack' Stevens on lead vox (and not Jon Oliva). This album is progressive and often features piano.Savatage are an American metal band founded in 1979 by brothers Jon and Criss Oliva.
Subgenres - heavy metal, prog metal (late), speed metal (early), power metal.
Savatage is one of the most underrated metal bands ever.
Jon Oliva has a real 4 octave vocals range. Besides, he can play all typical metal instruments, and piano.
Criss died at 30 in 1993 in a car accident caused by a drunk driver. R.I.P. Criss.
Actual line-up:
Jon Oliva - rhythm and lead guitar, bass guitar, piano, keyboards, drums, backing vocals
Zachary Stevens - vocals
Alex Skolnick - lead guitar
Credited line-up:
Zachary Stevens - vocals
Alex Skolnick - guitar
Johnny Lee Middleton - bass
Steve Wacholz - drums
(LOL, Jon Oliva wasn't credited - the genius who wrote and played this album almost alone)
It's the most impressive song on the album and the longest one (7:50). One of my top 3 songs by this band. Great vocals by Zack, including multi-layered vocals.
The song is about WW 2 and saving jews.
It's probably the most energetic song on the album, towards the end it reaches thrash metal speed.
A softer yet intense song. Zack sustain is incredible - long, powerful, emotional and skillfully delivered (14 seconds long, at about 3:40). This sustain is in my top 10 best sustains by metal singers.
This song gives me some thrash feel at times (which I like).
A song with soft and heavy parts, with slow and fast sections. Love the vocals.
Slow paced and softer song. It's beautiful.
Another lengthy song (7:30). It's a mid-tempo song with some faster sectons, piano in the intro and throughout.
A short instrumental (1:25) that I like very much. Jon Oliva is really diabolical on the piano. Part of this instrumental is used in the middle of the song Chance.