This is the band of American guitarist Chris Impelliteri. This time he has re-united with former
Rainbow vocalist
Graham Bonnet.
Graham Bonnet's vocals and Chris Impelliteri's guitar playing carries the whole album from start to end. If you're a fan of either of these two then this is a guaranteed purchase. Chris surely plays a mean guitar but
Graham Bonnet sings an even meaner lead vocal, so they fit each other pretty good.
Graham Bonnet has a powerful voice that fits the heavy music perfect. He sings with a very deep voice and almost reminds me of Chris Boltendahl (Grave Digger) at times (In terms of power...) The guitar playing is interesting and varied throughout the album. Unfortunately many of the songs just don't grab me. Some songs are a little too straight ahead and don't have enough variation. The style of the music is very heavy and fits somewhere between straight Hard Rock and melodic Power Metal.
Some of my favourites include the opener
Rock n'roll heroes, which pretty much sets the standard for the rest of the album. Heavy guitar riffing and powerful, gritty vocals. The song has a good chorus and a nice drive. Another favourite is
End of the world. The intro gives it a nice atmosphere before going into another heavy riff. I really like the chorus of this one and the solo is excellent.
Slow kill is probably my favourite track on the album. Brilliant start and then it keeps going into a strong verse before the groovy chorus. The way
Graham Bonnet sings is very powerful and the solo sections build the song nicely. An excellent song.
Nighttime lover is a pretty standard rocker and not one of my favourites, still it has a great solo section.
Why do they do that is another song that doesn't do it for me. I miss some more melody and variation in these songs.
What kind of sanity definitely has some kind of
Van Halen vibe.
Falling in love with a stranger closes the album in a good way. It is a standard melodic rocker with a catchy chorus. Nothing really special, but a nice little song.
I've listened to this album plenty of times and I can say for sure that the music doesn't grab me in the way many other bands have. Maybe it's just that the music is too simple, I don't know. The musicianship on the album is flawless and there are no really bad songs. Many good ones and a couple of great ones. System X should appeal to most fans of Heavy Rock.
Written by
Steen Monday, December 16, 2002
Show all reviews by SteenRatingsSteen: 6/10Members: No members have rated this album yet.
This article has been shown 4548 times. Go to the
complete list.