Yet another of Hard Rock's famous names, but one that's never really had the credit it deserves.
The hard rock swirl of Northrup's past life, as a solo performer, as a member of King Kobra,
XYZ and as one half of the
Shortino/Northrup alliance, seems to have coalesced around this outstanding new album, '
Wired In My Skin'.
There are many guest players here, but the most notable are the vocalists, Kelly Keeling, Terry Ilous,
Ted Poley and Johnny Edwards. In the world of melodic hard rock, you just couldn't put a value on this collection of proven talent.
It's always a dilemma for a guitarist who doesn't sing. Does he use one vocalist, thus risking the loss of his own musical identity to a distinctive voice. Or does he use several vocalists and run the risk of delivering a disjointed, incohesive album.
Northrup clearly chose the latter, and got it absolutely right, all four more than live up to their not inconsiderable reputations, clearly going the extra mile for Northrup.
In the vast majority of cases, the songs are written by Northrup, with some lyrical contributions from the relevant vocalist. Naturally, Northrup plays guitar and bass on all tracks. He also recorded, produced, mixed and mastered the album. Consequently, to assert that this new release stands or falls on Northrup's abilities is maybe stating the obvious.
And unequivocally, '
Wired In My Skin' is an unmitigated success. Philistines may complain that three of the eleven tracks are instrumentals (the metallic, hard rocking '
Black Moon' and the rhythmic, spacey, grooving '
Marking My Territory' are the picks) , but the enlightened will recognise a lyricism in Northrup's melodies that denies the need for words.
Johnny Edwards performs the perceptive, personally painful title track,
'Wired In My Skin' with tenacity and soul. If he had sung this way with Foreigner, Mick Jones would still be king of the airwaves.
On
'Big Blue Sky' powerful images and memorable music are deployed with absolute precision. Northrup's huge, neo psychedelic production and Keeling's heartfelt delivery do a persuasive job of matching style with substance.
The stakes seem to escalate with each new track. Song quality accepted, it's obvious to us by now that Northrup places equal emphasis on production and vocal ability.
Terry Ilous's charismatic vocal on the balladic
'The Road' lights up the album with a weighty torch song, fuelled by the requisite amounts of emotion and loss.
The poppier, upbeat '
Perfect Imperfection', with Poley on vocals, neatly breaks the intensity, but it quickly shifts back up through the gears to the dramatic
'Cemented Eyes', with the relatively unknown, but impressive David Zaragoza on vocals.
As
'Wired In My Skin' spins inexorably toward the end, the quality just doesn't waver below the line established by the opening salvo.
We hear more from Ilous and Poley, and the standard just doesn't flag.
Northrup keeps the arrangements fresh and unfailingly dresses the songs with a cutting edge production sound that is missing from so much melodic hard rock we hear today.
Unquestionably, a triumph.
Written by
Brian Friday, May 11, 2007
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