Its a shame this record is such a train wreck. Lying underneath the pathetic mess might be a good disc, but we'll never know, because the sound is so tragically bad. Vocalist Freddy Curci even puts in a nice delivery as the frontman, another aspect ruined by the amateurish production. Two monkeys in a basement could have engineered a better product. Frontiers should be ashamed to let this one out of the bag in this kind of rocky shape. Maybe they thought the intended audience would be so starry eyed over the return of the ex-Sheriff vocalist, that the production and song selection would be overlooked, forgiven, or both. To be fair, they tried to bring in some big gun producers to polish it up. But a turd is still a turd, just maybe with a smoother shine. An improvement over the utter garbage of the first master, yet its not enough. Not even close.
But for fanatics of Curci who have pined for more since the days of Sheriff and Alias and his slick, smooth and comforting vocals, they will find something worthwhile in the mess that is
Zion. The songwriters are of note, including Jeff Paris, but their output is about as inspired as the production. Songwise the disc suffers from what seems to be an inside running gag of flat, lifeless
AOR without much bounce or emotion. A tiny handful peek out of the mess including
"How Much Longer is Forever" but even that is clichéd and not worthy of redemption in this setting. It was formerly an Alias demo for the second album, and should have remained that way in all its collectable mystery.
"All It Takes Is A Minute" opens the disc with a lifeless cough. There is promise yet its like a jigsaw puzzle disassembled and in pieces. The chorus falls flat, the guitars are shallow and even the vocals are shot to hell and back.
"One Man Alone" has been tarnished by the demons of modern rock and its ripped this track to bits. The vocals plain suck and the whole song sounds messy and out of place. Reviewing the album is like beating a dead horse. You can only kick it so much before you realize that there's never going to be a glimmer of life left in the limp corpse. You can dress it up with the dark
"Crash the Mirror", and even its moody atmosphere cannot resurrect a project gone wrong.
It is difficult to positively view an album that is so obviously not polished much beyond demo stage. Even more so considering this disc's arrival has been pending since 2003. It was "almost" completed then and that was many moons ago. By the sound of it, they could have used another three years to get this thing right, instead of kicking it out the door like a paraplegic cat. The thing cant even limp out the door.
Zion is only for those collectors that might have it all. Everyone else can find better albums almost anywhere else. Hopefully the next time Curci shows his presence, it will be on something worthy of his talents instead of a throwaway like
Zion.
Written by
Alanna Monday, January 1, 2007
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