Label: MelodicRock Records 2015
Review by Kimmo Toivonen
Nalle Påhlsson has been a permanent fixture in the Swedish rock scene for many years. He’s currently playing bass in Therion and Last Autumn’s Dream, and you might know him from Treat or Vindictiv as well. Royal Mess is his own band, in which he is also the lead singer. And not a bad singer at all.
So what do we have here? According to Mr. Påhlsson, ”meat & potato hard rock”, and who am I to disagree. Most of the songs are straight-forward rockers with influences from Kiss and AC/DC. If I remember correctly, Nalle plays the part of Gene Simmons in a Kiss cover band and somehow that kind of shines through, even though Nalle’s songwriting is closer to that of Paul Stanley. There’s one song that strays away from the chosen path, and that’s ”The Pieces Of My Heart”. It’s a slow, somewhat prog-styled track that reminds me a lot of Winger’s more complicated stuff. It’s one of my favorites, along with ”Hell City” and ”Loaded Gun”. Some of the others are a bit too straight-forward for me, that’s why only three Royal R’s for this Mess. I’d rather listen to this than the last few Kiss albums though.
Oh yeah, did I mention that the guest list is basically the "who's who of Swedish hard rock"? Take a look at the band's website... a rather impressive list!
http://www.royalmess.se
https://www.facebook.com/ROYAL-MESS-421691307925595/
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