I usually tend to avoid any sort of band who are lead by a guitarist whose style of playing is described as "Shred". To me it conjures up horrible images of self-indulgent guitarists soloing into eternity and boring me to tears with a bland backing band playing bland backing riffs. I can't be bothered with this type of music, where the solo's come first and everything else is secondary.
Normally then I would pass this sort of album by and write it off as just another wank-fest. However on hearing a little bit more about the band I discovered that
Rob Rock was currently lending his vocal talents to the band (as he has done in the past) and as I'm a fan of Rob's I decided to explore the band further.
Thankfully it turns out that despite Chris Imellitteri possessing extraordinary skill on the guitar and his style of play often being compared to Malmsteem and Satriani, he favours songs with a more traditional song structure that your average Shred guitarist. And since this means I would get to hear much more
Rob Rock than I was expecting I got a hold of the album.
The first song
Wicked Maiden is an absolute beauty, it begins with a crunching Traditional Metal riff and kicks into gear with an air-raid siren scream courtesy of Mr Rock. The production is prefect with a burly drum sound backing up the rest of the instruments. The solo's are incisive and work within the context of the song rather than overpowering it which is very pleasing. It's basically the kind of way that you want every Metal album to start. If the album had continued in this fashion then we would be looking at a contender for Album of The Year. Sadly it doesn't quite play out that way.
Last Of A Dying Breed follows in the footsteps of the opener and is a fine song. The albums main problem does rear its head in its verses though. And that problem is the addition of keyboards to the mix.
Its not that they are poorly played,
Weapon's of Mass Distortion for example, contains a fine keyboard/guitar solo dual which is without doubt impressive. It's just that they get in the road too damn much. Many of the albums verses and some of its choruses are filled with overpowering and needless keyboard lines.
The Vision is the worst affected by this problem, why they decided that the horrible "plinky-plonky" keyboards were perfect foil for the chorus is beyond me. It's unbelievably irritating and robs all power from the chorus.
Eyes Of An Angel suffers from a similar setback as the keyboards, which would have worked fine in the background, have been placed front and centre and distract the listener from the otherwise excellent chorus. The song itself has a very 80's
Rainbow feel which is fine but is a total departure from the first half of the album.
This surprising change of style is followed by the plain odd
High School Revolution. It's a boogie-woogie Rock track that even Impellitteri's superb guitar leads can't save from sounding completely and utterly out of place. I assume it's an attempt at an
Alice Cooper impersonation but I can't really agree that it belongs on the album as the surrounding tracks not to mention the style of production make it seem a little ludicrous. Plus it leads you to wonder how many years have passed since any of the band members' last saw the inside of a high-school. I'm willing to wager it's been a fair few.
Thankfully the album doesn't continue on this bearing and travels back into a much more satisfying metal course with
Wonderful Life. This track along with the opener and the rollicking
Garden of Eden are the albums strongest weapons.
The album is rounded off by the frustrating
Holy Man and
The Battle Rages On. It's hard to work out just why these songs don't quite have the impact they should. The latter in particular starts off strong then trips up over a scrawny bridge and chorus section that's forgotten as soon as the disc spins to a stop.
That the album is well played and meticulously produced shouldn't surprise anyone who is familiar with Chris Impellitteri's work. But I don't really think I can recommend this album to anyone but his hardcore fans as I suspect your average metal-head is going to walk away feeling slightly disappointed with this one.
Written by
Stuart Friday, May 1, 2009
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