The first quarter of 2009 has given us the usual mix of good, bad and downright ugly.
Many of which we've already reviewed in these pages.
But in a a parallel universe, a number of low flying releases slipped in under our radar.
Here, at least, are the ones we caught up with:
Innocent Rosie's '
Bad Habit Romance' (Swedmetal Records) is a powerful, bracing rock album, just bursting with
Motley Crue like melody and G'n'R-esque attitude. It's full of stinging axework, thick cut riffs and amps turned up to eleven. (6.5/10).
In the much maligned and oft vilified world of Progrock, one man is currently shining brightly. Jack Foster III's fourth album,
'Jazz Raptor' (Progrock Records) - once again a collaboration with the unfeasibly talented Trent (Magellan) Gardner and Robert (too many to list) Berry - sees Foster further refining (and to some extent, redefining) his music and his lyrics, tracing the faultlines in human relationships and celebrating the everyday heroism that exists all around us, if only we take the time to look. Typically, the music ranges from epic, classic,
Kansas like progrock to much busier, jazz inflected stylings, very cohesively connected by sweet musical meanderings. (7/10).
Danger Avenue's (Indie) debut EP does a wonderful job of mimicking US melodic rock of the late seventies and early eighties. You can easily hear the influences of the era's giants like Van Halen, Mr Big, REOS and our own Thin Lizzy. In fact that's all you can hear, leaving DA as a faceless, soulless band, characterised only by their apparent determination to sound like everyone but themselves. On a Stars In Their Eyes's level they are surefire winners. But in every other respect, their enthusiasm needs to be sculpted into something more identifiable. (4/10).
In a similar manner, Italy's fast rising sleaze rock band, Killer Klown place great emphasis on their singer Gabry's vocal resemblance to Axl Rose and Jon Bon Jovi. Admittedly, there's a spark of something special on '
Gain' (Street Symphonies), the debut release, parcelled up inside the band's heavy rock wrapping, trying to get out, but too often here it gets extinguished by the band's short sighted, wannabe ambitions. That said, the album's standout tracks, 'Tropical Disease' and 'Joker' are good examples of just how heavy and energetic the genre can be. It's too bad so many of the lyrics are in broken-beyond-repair English. (5/10).
Funeral For A Friend's '
Memory And Humanity' (Roadrunner) is the band at its most accessible. It's constructed almost entirely of magnificent chord shift sequences and competing - but never overbearingly shouty - vocals. This album's real strength is its ability to ally sturdy melodies to gravity defying hard'n'heavy post industrial British rock. (6/10).
Robert (Alliance/Hush/3/GTR) Berry's latest solo release '
The Dividing Line' (Frontiers) has polarised opinion in the
AOR/melodic rock community. Surprisingly, the gainsayers appear to be in the majority.
I say surprisingly, because this is Berry at his most urbane. The music is subtle, textured, melodic, designed to reel you in, slowly but surely.
That doesn't mean it lacks excitement or pulse quickening hooks. 'Listen To The People' and
'This Life' provide enough sweet tasting visceral thrills for any
AOR fan to savour. (7/10).
The Free Spirit release,
'Pale Sister of Light' (Carpel Music) has been making a few waves, with some reviewers heralding this band as the saviour of melodic rock. A bit to go I think.
What they do, they do well. Combining strands of Moody Blues' like soft prog with Thin Lizzy-esque celtic rock, then stitching these together with softly spoken
AOR and triumphant melodic rock.
Not easily pigeonholed, and that will not help them, but it's different and worth staying with. Then, and only then, do you get it. (6/10).
Oz rock band, Koritni are back with their second release, '
Game Of Fools' (Bad Reputation). That sweaty, oily, hard driving twin guitar sound could only come from a land down under.
Produced by Anton (Silverchair) Hagop and mixed by Mike Fraser, this new album is a huge improvement on the debut.
The songs are stronger, the melodies are, well, more melodic and Hagop has achieved a fine balance between the band's raw, rootsy rock and the need to present a polished product, if the "charts" are to be troubled in any way.
Vocalist, Lex Koritni is a ringer for Tesla's Jeff Keith, and indeed 'Stab In The Back' and 'By My Side' could easily have fallen off the back of the 'Forever More' juggernaut.
Great album. Play it loud. (8/10).
Coming from the same label - Bad Reputation - are the quaintly titled Oh LaLa and their self titled debut. Nothing quaint about the music. Since Free, Van Morrison and The Black Crowes I haven't heard a band who sound so authentically rock'n'roll.
Unadulterated, undiluted, tapping into its Mississippi delta roots . Ragged round the edges, swampy hard rock. Check them out.(7.5/10).
Solarcade were chosen by The Killers to open their last US tour, and you can hear why on their EP
'Songs For The Gathering'. (A&I Records). The duo's carefully crafted songs and slickly constructed sound is very much like an alt pop version of Icehouse or even Crowded House, with more programming, more synths and a few more layers of polish sprayed on.(6/10).
Written by
Brian Friday, March 27, 2009
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