Handful of Rain is the eighth studio album by American heavy metal band Savatage, released in 1994. This is the first album since the death of the band's founding member and lead guitarist Criss Oliva, who had contributed to writing on its songs "Taunting Cobras" and "Nothing's Going On" before his death.
Handful of Rain is the band's only release with guitarist Alex Skolnick (who recorded leads), their only one without Johnny Lee Middleton since 1985's Power of the Night and their first without drummer Steve Wacholz. Wacholz had already left Savatage by the time the album was recorded. Both were credited and did promotional photos. Instead of replacing Middleton and Wacholz, Jon Oliva provided both drums and bass on the album as well as rhythm guitar, piano, keyboards, and backing vocals.
Recording
Before the recording of the band's previous album, Edge of Thorns, Jon Oliva had temporarily left the band and stepped down as lead vocalist and was replaced on vocals by Zak Stevens. After the recording drummer and founding member Steve Wacholz left the band and was replaced by Andy James, who quit the band immediately after Criss Oliva's death and was also contacted by Zak Stevens and Jon Oliva about tracking drums for HOA but declined to do so. The band's original plan for the next album was to have Jon Oliva rejoin the band on keys and secondary vocals, along with former rhythm guitarist Chris Caffery at a later date, but this was shaken up due to the death of lead guitarist and founding member Criss Oliva at the end of 1993.
Jon Oliva and producer Paul O'Neill decided to keep Savatage going to honour the memory of Criss, and went to Morrisound Studios in Tampa, Florida, to work on the next album. They had invited Middleton, Stevens, Wacholz and Caffery to join them, but they were still dealing with the death of Criss and did not show up. Jon Oliva and O'Neill started writing and recording the album together, with Oliva performing all drums and bass on the album, with both he and O'Neill responsible for rhythm guitar and keyboards. Oliva also performed some lead guitar, but the pair eventually enlisted former Testament guitarist Alex Skolnick to record most of the guitar solos, and subsequently contacted vocalist Zak Stevens to record the vocal parts for the album. the album was released on August 16, 1994, as the eighth Savatage album. Oliva could not appear as a band member for contractual problems and so the sleeve and booklet included photos of both Wacholz and Middleton to maintain a more "classic" Savatage line-up feeling to the release.
| rev2 =Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal
| rev2Score = 5/10
|rev3 = Metal Hammer (Germany)
|rev3score = 7/7
|rev4 = Rock Hard
|rev4score = 8.0/10
In a contemporary review for Rock Hard magazine, Matthias Breusch was disappointed for not being able to elect Handful of Rain among the best records of the month, like he did with Edge of Thorns. Despite sounding like a true Savatage album and a natural progression from previous works, he found the album lacking "catchy tunes" and "uptempo anthems", with the best tracks being slower songs and ballads exalted by Skolnick's guitar work.
|align="center"|31
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|align="center" |Japanese Albums Chart
|align="center" |66
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|align="center"|German Albums Chart
|align="center"|85
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{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
|+ 2022 chart performance for Handful of Rain
! scope="col"| Chart (2022)
! scope="col"| Peak<br />position
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