Metal
Saxon have released “Medusa”, the second single from “Gods of Thunder”, the album Biff Byford’s band release on 22 January through Silver Lining Music. It’s a song about the Gorgon who turned anyone who looked at her to stone. “A step into the world of Greek mythology,” Byford says. “Epic metal, epic story!”
It’s their first album since “Hell, Fire and Damnation”, from January 2024, and the first since Byford’s bowel cancer. The illness forced the band to cancel ten shows in the summer of 2025; that October, the singer announced he had finished his last round of chemotherapy.
The title track came first, on 2 September. The ten-song album was produced by Byford himself and mixed by Andy Sneap, who also plays guitar for Judas Priest on tour. Several of the songs turn to history: “The Bloody Tower (The Ballad of Anne Boleyn)” tells of the queen’s execution, “Remember the Alamo” revisits the Texas siege, and the album closes with “MI5”, about the Berlin Wall and Cold War espionage. Doug Scarratt and Brian Tatler play guitars, Nibbs Carter bass and Nigel Glockler drums.
The tour for the album has eleven dates in the UK and Ireland, from 13 to 27 February, with Armored Saint as guests, and seventeen more in mainland Europe, from Brussels on 1 March to Tilburg on the 24th. In Brussels, Zürich, Cologne and Tilburg the band will bring back their stage eagle, twelve metres from wingtip to wingtip. So far, no shows in Spain.
Text by Roger Estivill