Without a doubt, "The Power and the Myth" is one of the most highly anticipated
AOR releases of 2004.
House of Lords have become something of legend in the underground scene for their three fantastic albums that while all featured soaring choruses, bombastic arrangements and killer instrumentation, they still managed to never record the same record twice. But despite the changes, their signature stamp remained intact. The debut was chock-full of power rock anthems hair metal style, "Sahara" was a brasher effort and had other influences creeping in and "Demons Down" was a heavy slice of big production rock that was a breath of fresh air just as the style was fading in popularity come 1992, which is probably why it never reached the same critical acclaim as the debut. That last one was twelve years past and one would expect that a band hungry for a comeback after such a long hiatus would perhaps try and resurrect one of their older sounds to please the fans and burrow their way back into the hearts of those that still cling to days of yore, but not
House of Lords. They have defied all convention and morphed once again only this fourth incarnation leaves much to be desired.
"The Power and the Myth" has been baking for almost eight years now if you include the oldest of the demos, but really only three if you want to be picky about it and only count the most recent reunion. It has also seen its fair share of trials and tribulations along the way. Most notably one of the key members of the group, keyboardist Gregg
Giuffria parted ways to blast off into solo territory. Here's hoping that he creates something more along the lines of vintage
AOR than this mish-mash, which could be why he jumped ship. Maybe he didn't want his name attached to this? Really I can't blame the man much. They also had difficulty getting the rights to the band name and maybe the effort wasn't worth it either, for it totally throws in the gutter that "sound" that made
House of Lords, well,
House of Lords. This could be released under any other band name and it would still get the same lukewarm reception.
Musically this is a creature that the fans are going to reject instantly. The remaining members of
House of Lords have decided to pull the band kicking and screaming into the "current day" music scene, slapping the songs around with that dreaded modern influence. Some tunes brought to mind the horrid boringness of the once popular radio darlings, the Goo Goo Dolls and other tracks reek of that
Dokken "Dysfunctional" curse. Yet others blend ethnic sounds, Middle Eastern arrangements,
Led Zeppelin-ish musical wanderings and progressive instrumental tangents. But the circle always loops back around to
Dokken and their unforgettable disaster. The end result is definitely a hodgepodge of sounds that attempt to hit the mark but seem to miss it more often than not. The choruses are flatter than five-day-old road kill when I expected something bouncier, and inflated, you know, music that brings more like Pamela Anderson to mind as far as full roundness is concerned.
James Christian has always been a favorite of mine, rich pipes full of belly belting power but here he sounds bored to death and seems to just be moving through the motions to get it over and done with already. One used to think he could sing the phone book and it would still be riveting but he can't manage to give any of these songs a lift even when they could severely benefit from the supporting boost he used to be able to supply when a song demanded it. These get on their knees and beg for it and Christian still can't manage to inject any kind of passion into the proceedings. It's hard to believe this is the same voice that brought us songs like "What's Forever For" or "Jealous Heart".
All the other members are here too, Lanny Cordola on guitars, Chuck Wright heading up the bass, and Ken Mary behind the drumsticks.
Giuffria must be a tough musician to replace, for it takes a total of four different ivory ticklers to fill his empty place behind the keyboard, including Ricky Phillips and Derek Sherinian. The keys still seem flat and not nearly in the kind of abundance seen on previous HOL efforts, but then again, this CD really feels like not that much effort was put into it in the first place. There are some redeeming qualities, such as the in the performances other than the vocals. All the players here are rock solid, it is just that the material they have to work with limits the final product. The disc reeks of modern touches musically but thankfully that bled over into the production as well, since it is tight and very well done. When tested on higher end speaker equipment and even mixed by a capable receiver into Dolby Digital Pro Logic II for some 5.1 action it keeps a nice bottom end with unwavering bass and stable treble, the sure sign of quality. Thankfully the production is one of the disc's most saving graces. It sounds good, crystal clear without a cloud in sight, which is a real plus for an audiophile. Too bad the music itself didn't get the same kind of careful treatment as the production values.
We begin our journey into the heart of this musical turkey with our very first track, which is really not too bad when stacked against the rest. An ominous acoustic guitar that sounds straight out of a spaghetti western opens the disc with interest high and peaked, you can almost visualize an audience waiting with eager anticipation, breath being held, the whole nine, for this classic status band to take off and rock their socks off. Yet the song,
"Today" takes flight with unsteady wings, a twang as opposed to the expected bang. Then those dreaded and warned about "Dysfunctional" similarities pop up as soon as the song kicks into its general flow and it crashes and burns. Christian sounds like something out of one of those angsty teenage pop bands, you know, the ones where the lead singer whines in kind of a careless monotone? The song itself can be described as some ungodly combination of
Def Leppard "Slang" meets Queensryche "Hear in the Now Frontier", which were two other examples of great bands whose experiments blew up in their faces.
This is followed up with
"All Is Gone", and shows a vast improvement on all avenues. One of the few catchy choruses on the CD can be detected here and while its still obviously steeped in modern influences, they manage to pull it all together for a pretty good outing that kicks the tempo up and ventures into
AOR territory with a smooth overall feel and a sizzling guitar solo that dives into the unexpected.
"Am I the Only One" is my pick of the disc, as it is just too easy to relish in its light moodiness. It is a slow, plodding track with echo applied to many of the vocal passages for emphasis and extra flourish. Consistantly staying within the smooth relaxed restraints, even for the chorus they never feel the need to break out and disturb the Zen-like state achieved here. A real punch in that chorus could have done wonders for the overall presentation but as it is - it's still a decent ballad-like track that just could have been so much more.
Unfortunately from here the disc takes a turn for the worse. The best three are already out of their system so they wallop us with the downright dreadful
"Living in Silence". It rocks more than the previous trio but everything seems to fall apart in the aftermath with a wasted chorus that goes nowhere in a hurry. Next up is a throwaway instrumental that shares the title of the album and does feature some keyboard wizardry from Derek Sherinian, but really I don't see myself listening to it ever again. It sounds like a reject from a B grade progressive band that few still remember, like maybe, Heaven's Cry, but with even more pointless musical chaos. It has all the bombast and excitement of Fates Warning's "A Pleasant Shade of Gray".
"The Rapture" turns up the Middle Eastern fiddlings and also sees
House of Lords cranking into their full
Led Zeppelin mode. There are some rather complex things going on in the background here but the song is so boring I end up not caring by the millionth time James decides to inflict us with his "aaahhh ahhhh waiting for the rapture" line. The vocals here are delivered so utterly devoid of emotion that it sucks any life out that could be sparking in the song.
Speaking of sucking,
"Man Who I Am" comes to mind, although I do like the way Christian twists the end of the word "afternoon" at one point. That's really the only thing nice I can say about the track, sadly. A plodding piece that could have easily been lifted from any Top 40 "pop-rock" act, and frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if I turned on VH-1 and saw some scrubby looking guys plunking on their acoustic guitars and wailing about their pathetic-ness and hear this track coming at me from the television speakers. There's no zest, no emotion, the song just trips and falls flat on its face.
"Bittersweet Euphoria" continues the coma most likely induced by the last song and gives off those wretched we-are-trying-much-too-hard-to-be-modern vibes, like
Dokken during their "Dysfunctional" thing again. or wait. even better,
Dokken doing "Shadow Life".
"Mind Trap" is abysmal and is way too reminiscent of
Def Leppard's "Slang" (the song, oh hell, the whole album, why not?). All I can think of at this point is "what the hell are you guys thinking?" and "please make it stop." But oh joy, there is yet one more song to go, the child abuse ballad
"Child of Rage". It opens like a country and western song, I expected to hear Alan Jackson start crooning about how he lost his hound dog after the first acoustic diddling. Thankfully things pick up from there, as the band manages to find their wings and propels this one above the others, treating the serious subject matter with sweet sensitivity. The chorus doesn't quite reach the bombastic grace of
House of Lords from the past, but it is certainly better and catchier than anything else on display. Supposedly the vocals were lifted from demos that were recorded several years prior and it shows, as James is hitting notes and wailing away with the kind of passion that he couldn't summon up even if all the other eight vocal performances were combined.
So this is what we waited for? To sum things up, "The Power and the Myth" can be called problematic at best. The first three tracks, while still steeped deep into a pile of that so-called "modern" sound, are still decent tunes with some redeeming qualities and replay value, the rest of the album is mostly just a tedious affair, even the progressive like instrumental tangents go unnoticed just by the sheer repetitive feel of it all. And a modern, almost radio friendly sound is not always a bad thing,
TNT managed to drag themselves into it with pride, energy and fantastic songwriting with "Transistor" many years back, so that's not even the main problem. The bottom line is that this album is just boring, no matter how they try to spice things up by slinging some exotic eastern flair here, and a bit of progressive-like touches there, it simply doesn't work when all's said and done. People that did enjoy such albums that were in my book travesties such as Dream Theater's "Falling Into Infinity" and the already mentioned
Dokken's "Dysfunctional",
Def Leppard's "Slang", or Queensryche's "Hear in the Now Frontier" (or "Q2K" for that matter) will be right at home here and without a doubt will be able to open their heart to the music. If you can stomach and forgive those missteps then perhaps you can learn to like this. But for those that still hold classic
House of Lords close to their heart, you will just weep when you hear this thing. The only power that could be found in this album, I'm sad to report, is simply a myth.
Written by
Alanna Friday, March 26, 2004
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