Riff Raff was a legendary rock magazine based in London in the late 80s and 90s. A genuine working class rock mag, written and edited by "the lads" in a drug-N-Jack-D-fuelled haze, it was just too R n’R for its own good, falling behind more trainspotterly publications like Q, Kerrang, and Mojo. This website is an archive and kind of shrine to the writing of its greatest "hacks," most of whom have faded in embarrassing middle age, with at least one of them having a Smule account.
Call To Arms is the sum of the 30 years Saxon have been riding the proverbial wheels of steel.
Amidst the galloping, anthemic heavy metal of tracks like Hammer Of The Gods, Chasing The Bullet, and Back In 79, there are the occasional nods to cherished sources. This reveals a band that is still immensely proud of its influences, despite its own significant contribution to the N.W.O.B.H.M.
The most obvious case arrives in the form of When Doomsday Comes(a deadringer for DEEP PURPLE's Perfect Strangers) and the twin THIN LIZZY/IRON MAIDEN-esque guitars of Ballad Of The Working Man, and Afterburner, which mixes Lizzy and MOTORHEAD into a juggernaut of breakneck metallic mayhem.
A gloriously uplifting, full-throttle album which confirms Saxon’s top-ranking status amidst the rocking nobility they themselves derive from!
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