Scarlet Rayne - Theater
Humanitarian (Arkeyn
Steel)1990/2007
1. "Scarlet Rayne"
(6:00)
2. "Alpha And Omega" (4:40)
3. "Tales Of The Lost" (4:32)
4. "Covered Fear" (5:39)
5. "C.F.C." (4:39)
6. "Sands Of Time" (6:50)
7. "Through Eyes Of The Past " (6:51)
8. "Midnight Excursion" (:42)
BONUS TRACKS
9. "Razorback" (4:12)
10. "Lost Meaning" (5:04)
11. "Lion's Den" (3:18)
12 "How Now" (3:58)
I remember when this was released back in 1990. It was all the rage in the Christian Metal underground circles. People were calling them "the next Queensryche". Indeed, Scarlet Rayne do bear some similarities to the Ryche, if you are talking about the two mid-paced tracks on Ryche's glorious debut EP. Scarlet Rayne also have similarities to Sacred Warrior, Steel Prophet, and Helstar. Scarlet Rayne offer up galloping heavy metal that is laced with melodic keys, skillful guitar solos and dynamic song writing. The vocalist has a soaring, high voice that fits perfectly for this style. Vocalist Dan Johnston reminds me of Fredrik Sjöström of Veni Domine at times. While the tone and enunciation may be different, there are similar qualities to both vocalists in range and style.
The production isn't top notch, and has that 80's, underground, no-budget sound. Those who grew up with that sound, such as myself, don't really find this too distracting. However, I have read that others find the production "unlistenable". I personally cannot understand this as the overall sound isn't that far off from early Sacred Warrior, or perhaps even some of those old Metal Blade bands like Pandemonium, Fates Warning, Omen, Helstar, etc. It has a "classic" sound. Metal in the 80's was never that concerned with perfect production techniques as it was with the songs and the attitude.
For a while this album was very rare and would regularly sell for close to $50 on Ebay. Only 1,000 original CD copies were released by the band in 1990. Fortunately in 2007 this CD has again become available, only this time around 2000 hand numbered copies have been released. The original "Theater Humanitarian" was quite short with only seven actual songs, and one short "joke" song at the end. The re-release includes four additional bonus songs. The sound quality of the re-release has been much improved over the original, while not so drastically as to lose the original feel of the album. The booklet is an 8-page full color insert with lyrics and a short biography, that is unfortunately very poorly written. There isn't much in the way of photos offered, although there is one band photo included that was not in the original CD pressing.