Wheels of Thunder From June 2015

After recording four fine studio albums in three years, Saxon had catapulted to the top of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal heap alongside Iron Maiden and Def Leppard, neither of which had released their American breakthroughs yet (The Number of the Beast and Pyromania), putting all three bands on pretty much even footing. Certainly, the release of Saxon's first live album – named The Eagle Has Landed after the gigantic eagle-shaped lighting truss that illuminated the band on-stage – should have been a crowning achievement for the hard-working quintet from Barnsley…

While Saxon's first live album, The Eagle Has Landed, failed to improve on the glory of the band's early studio albums, their second live set Greatest Hits Live! actually does a nice job of weeding through their early hits and the rare gems in their latter records…

Here we go again! Rush are perhaps the only band that can get away with issuing a studio album and following it up with a live record of the tour for that same album, as is the case here. Is there any band on a major label out there that has as many live records as Rush does? People buy 'em. Lots of people. The reason is that yes, Rush fans are fanatics, and who wouldn't want that in a fan base? The other reason is that they issue new studio recordings so infrequently that fans are grateful to have live offerings documenting a particular tour. Another mystery is how, after 33 years, a band with this kind of longevity manages to stay focused and restless, changing gears and musical approaches to its core sound…