Unruly Child consists of guitarist Bruce Gowdy and keyboardist Guy Allsion. Newcomer on vocals is
Philip Bardowell (ex. Magdalen) and his strong vocals are a great asset for the band.
The album is very well produced with the vocals being the fullest production wise. The guitars are more in the background with the drums. The keyboards are adding another layer on "UC III" creating a great sound collage. On top of that there is loads of vocal harmonies.
The melodic
Falling is among the best tracks. The song is mid-tempo melodic rock with a sing-along chorus and a nice clean guitar riff overdubbed by an electric guitar.
The semi acoustic track
All Around Me is a great example of the perfect vocal harmonies. The song builds up for the chorus, where heaps of vocal harmonies are produced. The heavy use of Keyboard creating lots of emotion is very alike Led Zeppelin. Furthermore
All Around Me has Led Zep references with some strings and vocals matching Led Zeppelin.
The pompous ballad
Bring Me Home has lots of emotion. A Hammond Organ is adding another layer to the bombastic
Unruly Child sound.
Philip Bardowell is following Mark Free and Kelly Hansen as singers in
Unruly Child. The mid-tempo
Sleeping Town shows that he was the right choice. His vocals are strong and they blend perfectly with Bruce Gowdy and Guy Allison.
Sleeping Town grows on you and sounds like a radio hit.
To create even more atmosphere to the record
You See Three is a 1.30 minute short instrumental keyboard piece. The song is followed by another album highlight
Kings of Tragedy. The verse has two parts - a slower part, where
Philip Bardowell's vocals are sounding very similar to
Gary Hughes from European Hard Rockers Ten. The other part of the verse has a skew rhythm with a great guitar. The track has lots of emotion and one of the best choruses on the disc.
Vertigo and
Shades of Love are representing
Unruly Child's comeback to the music scene very well. Both songs have bombastic choruses with smooth background vocals from Bruce and Guy complementing Philip's lead vocals.
The music of
Unruly Child can best be described as multi layered vocals, guitars and keyboards.
Unruly Child has their own thick sound. The snake in paradise is, that the album sometimes sounds a bit too polished with too many ballads. A few songs are missing a great hook like the track
Unruly Child, which is a full-blown rocker, but missing a great hook.
"UC III" is a very good album with album highlights
Falling,
All Around Me, and
Kings of Tragedy.
Unruly Child is a safe buy for fans of pompous melodic Rock.
Written by
Michael Wednesday, February 5, 2003
Show all reviews by MichaelRatingsMichael: 6.5/10Members: No members have rated this album yet.
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