I can understand. In the absence of any quality Coverdale or
Whitesnake product recently, somebody had to fill the void.
Paul
Shortino, ex of Rough Cutt and
Quiet Riot has one of the great rock voices. His
'Back On Track' album with
JK Northrup is a criminally underrated (and largely overlooked) hard rock masterclass.
The point is this : he has no need to mimic anyone else, no matter who.
On
'Chasing The Dream' he has collaborated with a European cast, including Michael Voss, who produced and directed (and largely scripted this by the sounds of it), plus Roland (Mad Max) Bergmann, Michael (Jaded Heart) Mueller and Ralf (Biss) Heyne.
What they clearly aimed for is a melodic rock sound that approximates the style of any of these bands, as sung by Coverdale. A missed opportunity.
Producer Voss has stretched a modest budget impressively, lavishing several coats of melodic rock lacquer onto a precision engineered, heavy rock album. With a
Michael Bormann or a Claus Lessman that would have sounded great, but with
Shortino, more is not more. Less is more, more or less.
Shortino needs a bluesy, ragged edged, live in the studio feel. Otherwise his scorched voice just sounds out of place, looking for direction.
That said, the balladic, acoustic based,
'Missing' captures some of the
Shortino spirit by allowing his beautifully controlled voice to just about take pride of place in a memorably melodic, if misplaced evocation of hard rock heartbreak.
Among the best of elsewhere,
'Nocturnal' knuckles down to some serious riffing and lyrically is a welcome alternative to rock's usual hotch potch of clichés and banalities.
Perversely,
'Alone They Ride' takes a clichéd, hard rock road theme and turns it into a cracking melodic rock song, with Voss reducing the polish to a thin veneer, through which we can how
Shortino's passionate performance cuts to the heart of a lyric, no matter how many times it's been done before.
A bit of a mixed bag then, with
Shortino apparently still searching for a stylistic identity. With Voss's assistance, he hits several of his targets dead on, but misses others by the proverbial mile.
Written by
Brian Monday, June 22, 2009
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