This is a huge improvement over
'Thrill Of The Chase'.
With this new release, unimaginatively titled '
Keep On Rockin', M&R
Rush hit their stride impressively, combining the athletic grace of a long distance runner with the explosive energy of an Olympic sprinter.
There's a love of the melodic rock genre and an almost palpable enthusiasm emanating from these grooves, quickly showing that the band have a firm grasp of the finer points as well as the essentials.
The fact that several band members can and do handle lead vocals gives the band a genuine edge over many of their contemporaries. And when they all come together on a verse, a bridge, a chorus, powerful harmonies ensue.
There are distinct echoes of bands like
April Wine and Harlan
Cage on tracks like '
On A Saturday Night' and '
Come Back To Me', but when it all gets just a little too fluffy, Paul Martin's wiry axework cuts through the sweetness like a knife.
A sweaty, Stonesy riff fuels '
Dream Girl', throwing of sparks and steam as it hurtles toward a raucously harmonic chorus.
There's a real (and not unwelcome) Myles Goodwin feel to the lightfooted
AOR of '
One More Night' and
'Still In Love With You'. Melancholy melodies and universal tales of love won and lost.
Must be a Canadian thing.
Producers / band members Jeff Luff and John McFarland have applied the studio polish sparingly, preserving the music's warm, valve driven ambience. That doesn't mean the album pulls its punches. Tracks like
'Time Waits For No One' and the title cut, '
Keep On Rockin' come out of their corners fighting, eyes on the prize.
The only breaks with convention are firstly, '
Give Me Strength's faux gospel intro and cod reggae verse, both hard to assimilate after 10 tracks of out and out melodic rock. Secondly, it's hard to understand why the band thought it necessary to cover Free's
'Wishing Well'. Their own songs stand up well to any form of scrutiny.
That said, the track is a real grower. If anything - and this may be heresy I know - the band bring out nuances not immediately noticeable before, focusing on the song's melody lines rather than the raw, hard rock vibe of the original.
Having said all of that, one of the two tracks featuring special guest, Chip Z'Nuff, '
Come Back To Me', might just be the album's standout track. It's tuneful, urgent and it gains a pacey momentum as it heads inexorably in the direction of a captivating hook. Better than that, it's got a bouncy, breezy middle eight that's full of crisp invention, with an occasional progrock twist.
They may have been around for a while now, but on this evidence, M&R
Rush's melodic rock vision has never been dimmed by the passage of time. A fine return to form.
Written by
Brian Sunday, September 23, 2007
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