Europe's 'comeback' album, '
Start From The Dark', was released in 2004 to mixed reactions and mixed reviews. Why?
Because for all those bands clogging up the road back from obscurity, the choice is a simple one. Take the pieces of silver and resurrect past glories (a route that seldom leads to its desired destination), or make your own music, having soaked up a myriad of influences these last 20 years or so.
Courageously,
Europe chose the latter.
Unarguably,
'Start From The Dark' was a contemporary rock album. A veritable smorgasbord of rhythmic, low key melodies and hard edged, thick cut guitars. It had its detractors - the melodic rock world is full of reactionaries - but open minded rock fans welcomed the album for its maturity and progressive attitude.
Initially, the most impressive aspect of
Europe's new release, '
Secret Society' is the sound. The production's valve driven ambience is the perfect setting for the album's marriage of sonic clarity and organic noise, totally obscuring its genesis in Protools.
Haugland and Leven lay down locked and loaded rhythms, combining with Norum's hardbodied riffs and razor wired soloing to again lay down the foundation on which the band build their nu, improved brand of heavy melodic rock. And yes, the melodies are there. Buried a little deeper perhaps, but if you dig in and drill down, a rich seam of sturdily constructed, user friendly tunes is uncovered.
There's plenty of keyboard content too, but maybe not as we know it. On
'Secret Society' Michaeli's low slung keyboard sound is imaginatively and effectively used to build atmosphere or to underline a bridge, a chorus, rather than provide the focal point for a song, as it did so in the past.
That said, it's Norum's big, crashing chords and snaking, hard driving riff that make '
Love Is Not The Enemy' the album's most immediate track.
Elsewhere, on a finely crafted, multi layered album of intelligent songs and sinuous tunes, several tracks are worthy of mention.
It's rare to find a rock song lyricising the strength of filial love. The beautifully balladic '
A Mother's Son', does so with without apology and mercifully, without resorting to sentimentality.
'
Always The Pretenders' and '
The Getaway Plan' bubble quickly back to the surface after a couple of plays through the CD. The first's edgy, tentative tone satisfactorily resolves to a big, gothic tinged chorus. The second is straight ahead heavy rock, notable for its relative orthodoxy on an album that won't conform to most people's expectation.
'Secret Society' might well struggle for acceptance among died in the wool melodic rock fans. Similarly, contemporary rock fans may find the band's past a barrier they can't get over. That's unfortunate, as this classy, quality melodic rock.
Those who discover it with an open mind are in for treat.
Written by
Brian Tuesday, November 14, 2006
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