A trio of
Phenomena albums was released in the years 1985 through 1991. All were the brainchild of Tom Galley, brother of Mel (Trapeze), and all were project albums featuring the good and the great in British hard rock eg
Glenn Hughes, Scott Gorham, Max Bacon and John Wetton.
All three releases made waves but hardly made history. Yet, for some reason or another, concept albums like these can become the stuff of folklore, and so it was with
Phenomena.
I found myself encouraged by the state of rock when I discovered a fourth album had been recorded in 2004. Clear evidence that the much hyped melodic rock "comeback" was becoming a reality. The fact that it took two years to find a release tipped the scales in the other direction.
So, in 2006 we eventually get to hear it.
Galley enlisted a fine selection of vocalists, including they-just-get-better-with-age duo,
Glenn Hughes and Tony Martin. Along with Keith Murrell, these three will be the best known, but Lee Small (who wrote most of the material with Galley) and Matt Moreton grab a sizeable chunk of the glory.
Just as on the previous three albums, the music and the songs have their own unique style and sound. It's left of centre melodic rock with a cinematic spin, placing great emphasis on bruising rhythms, emphatic strings and soaring, hard hitting choruses.
Lyrically, the songs flit between melodrama, social realism and morality tales, reflecting a world that has lost its grip on definitions of sanity and self. That's clearly a lot more than you get with your average rock song, but
Phenomena sells itself short by offering no new observations or insights.
That said, Galley uses imaginative arrangements and inventive production techniques to compose and create colourful musical images.
The album opens with the richly atmospheric
'Sunrise' (performed by Lee Small). Busy, intense and initially entirely predictable, it bursts into life on the back of a heavily layered, thick cut riff. The song's stunning, repetitive, one word chorus will remain stubbornly in your head, no matter how hard you try to shake it loose.
'Touch My Life' (performed by
Glenn Hughes) follows the same route, if not quite as effectively.
'So Near So Far' (Keith Murrell
) and
'How Do You Feel' (
Glenn Hughes) adopt the same formula, skimming unambitiously but satisfyingly across a number of melodic rock influences before upsizing into a mammoth chorus.
Arguably,
'Killing For The Thrill' (performed by Matt Moreton) is the album's standout track. It steals blatantly from Eminem and Marilyn Manson, mixing metal and rap to create a strong sense of menace and unease, then shifts carefully into a gorgeously downbeat chorus with a naggingly familiar hook. It won't be to everyone's taste but it sure works for me.
'Chemical High'(Tony Martin)
, 'Higher' (
Glenn Hughes) and
'God Forgives' (Tony Martin) too have much more of a metal feel, with amped up guitars and cranked up rhythms providing a granite hard bedrock on which Galley builds a trio of toughened up melodic hard rock tracks, illuminated by surges and spikes of lightning bright axework.
The real surprise then is that '
Psychofantasy' turns out to be so good, sounding relevant and contemporary without losing sight of the project's original ethic. And Galley still writes a wickedly infectious hook.
Written by
Brian Monday, June 19, 2006
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