Rock Blog #32: Reviews! Again! Judas Priest, Bruce Dickinson, FM, Lionheart, Issa.

 I'm on a roll! More reviews coming your way right now, only a couple of days after the previous bunch! Let's start with a few legendary artists.

Some have called the latest JUDAS PRIEST album "Invisible Shield" (RRR) as one of their best. I don't know, for me they were at their best during "Defenders/Turbo" era. Yes, I might be a heretic. A few of the songs on this album are very much in "Painkiller" vein, fast and/or furious with simple refrains, probably pure gold for those who enjoy their Priest as heavy as possible. I prefer them when the inject a bit more melody to their metal, luckily there are a few songs like that on the album: "Gates Of Hell", "Crown Of Horns" and "Fight Of Your Life" for example. With 14 songs, there's just too much to absorb, a trimmed-down version with the 10 best songs would get a better rating. 

I am not a huge Iron Maiden fan, and I haven't really listened to much BRUCE DICKINSON's solo material either. I didn't have any expectations for "The Mandrake Project" (RRRr), knowing that Bruce does what he wants and it could be anything. I was positively surprised though, this album is fairly traditional heavy rock with modern influences. Dickinson being the voice of Iron Maiden and one of the songwriters, there are a bound to be similarities and indeed there are.  The most obvious one is "Eternity Has Failed", a very close relative to the Maiden song "If Eterenity Should Fail" from "Book Of Souls".  My favourites are the Ghost-like "Many Doors To Hell", "Afterglow Of Ragnarok" and "Mistress Of Mercy".

FM are AOR veterans, and "Old Habits Die Hard" (RRR) is their 14th album. Their first two albums from the eighties are classics, but they've released decent stuff since their reformation too. However, I find it hard to get into these tracks. All very well constructed and immaculately sung by the great Steve Overland, but somehow they are just... unexciting. There are glimpses of their greatness here and there, but overall "Old Habits Die Hard" is one of their weaker efforts.

LIONHEART had their brief moment in the early eighties, when they were dubbed as the first "NWOBHM supergroup", with ex-members from Iron Maiden, Tygers Of Pan Tang and Def Leppard. Once they got around to releasing their first album, some of those members had been replaced and their "Hot Tonight" album turned out to be polished AOR. The band didn't last for long, 1986 it was over for them. Fast forward to 2016, when the band reformed with new vocalist Lee Small. Since then, they've released three albums, "The Grace Of A Dragonfly" (RRRR) being the latest one. The albums by the reformed band have been slightly heavier than "Hot Tonight", I could even say "more british-sounding", and this one follows on the same path. Anyway, they've got some fine, melodic songs, with big hooks here:  "V Is For Victory", "Little Ships", "Just A Man" and "UXB", to name a few.

ISSA's latest album "Another World" (RRRR) was one that I had big expectations for: the Martin brothers James and Tom have written and produced it, and their track record has been quite good. It is a decent album, no doubt about it, but maybe I was expecting something even better... oh well, if I put my unrealistic hopes aside and look at "Another World" as it is, there's not really much to complain about. All songs are good, the arrangements are lively and colourful and Issa herself belts out the songs with passion. My choice as the best song: "The Hardest Fight".