Northern German melodic power metallers Mob Rules are celebrating their 30th anniversary. Time to let it rip! With “Celebration Day – 30 Years Of Mob Rules”, the band around singer Klaus Dirks releases a compilation that could hardly have become more extensive and of higher quality. With over 150 minutes of playing time (spread over two CDs), the capacity of the medium is stretched to the limit with 30 hand-picked songs, including not only obvious band classics such as “Black Rain”, “Hollowed Be Thy Name” and “Rain Song”, but also songs that have previously been less in the spotlight.
“I immediately have to think of “Way Of The World”, which was the last song on our “Hollowed Be Thy Name” album from 2002,” explains Klaus. “We were able to get ex-Helloween/Masterplan guitarist Roland Grapow for a guest appearance and in the end the eight-and-a-half-minute track became one of the best in our repertoire.”
In addition to this great cross-section of the band’s career, there are also some tracks that were previously only available digitally (for example the latest single “Hymn Of The Damned” and the Amon Amarth cover “Raven’s Flight”). Especially for this compilation, all these tracks have been carefully remastered by Markus Teske.
With three brand new cover songs, “Celebration Day – 30 Years Of Mob Rules” also contains previously unreleased material. With great attention to detail, the band took on songs as different as “Run To The Hills” (Iron Maiden), “Fame” (Irene Cara) and “Square Hammer” (Ghost).
French artist Stan-W Decker (Primal Fear, Blue Öyster Cult, Rage) was enlisted for the visual design of the anniversary release, creating the perfect setting with a breathtaking cover illustration containing numerous cross-references to the Mob Rules band history.
All in all, every detail of “Celebration Day – 30 Years Of Mob Rules” displays the incredibly high quality standards of a band that doesn’t do things by halves. Here’s to the next 30 years!
