35 years and a million miles from the heavy progressive rock of their debut album, German band,
Epitaph have reformed, 25 years after the last studio album '
Danger Man'.
Lineup for '
Remember The Daze' has founder members, Cliff Jackson and Bernd Kolbe on board, plus Achim Poret and Heinz Glass, who'd joined the band for their third album '
Return To Reality'.
This "comeback" album is firmly rooted in the band's decade of birth. There is no pretence here, no pandering to contemporary rock music fashion.
Just heavyweight guitars, punching hard; in your face arrangements; performances shaped and sharpened by years of experience; superb songwriting and a three dimensional production (thanks to Jackson).
Along the way there are echoes of
Uriah Heep and Deep Purple, crackling with kinetic energy and powered by sonically huge guitars. Equally, there are several impressive tracks in the style of down'n'dirty, hard driving southern rock
Jackson's pockmarked voice, worn and wrinkled by the passage of time, radiates warmth and wisdom on a set of beautifully constructed songs and philosophical lyrics.
The best of these, or at least the most immediate, are the opening trio, beginning with the shimmering, eastern influenced southern rock of '
East Of The Moon', eagerly followed firstly by '
Evermore's ringing guitars and seismic riffs, and secondly by the taut, tense, driving
'Cold Rain'.
The remaining tracks aren't quite so readily accessible, but the title track, full of clanging guitars and full blooded harmonies bubbles quickly to the surface.
'
Middle Of The Night' starts life as a sturdily melodic, hardbodied heavy rock song, before morphing into a dreamily transparent, mock psychedelic harmony fest, climaxing in a welter of monolithic riffs and barbed axework.
The swaggering '
Hole In The Head' gives Foghat a run for their money, seamlessly sliding into the swampy, grits'n'catfish '
Psychedelic Eyes', balancing an unflinching toughness with a thoughtful, compassionate lyric.
That said, '
Looking For A Friend' grows into a monster track. Mott The Hoople coming face to face with
Thin Lizzy in Bachman Turner's backyard. The naggingly infectious, Beatle-esque "na-na-nas" are enough to sell the song just on their own.
In honesty though, as the cliché goes, there isn't a duff track here. Some take their time to get into your head, but given time they'll persuade, muscle or insinuate their way past your natural defences, and you'll be glad they did.
Unarguably, one of the better albums of the year so far.
Written by
Brian Monday, May 28, 2007
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