BRIDGER: "Bridger"

Rating: 6/10

Label: Escape Music 2011

Review by Alan Holloway

Glen Bridger of Head East has chosen to head off and do some of his own stuff, accompanied by the band’s bassist, Greg Manahan. He’s got pretty lucky in his choice of vocalist, as Terry Ilous showed he can be as melodic as the next chap in XYZ and Great white.

In general, “Bridger” is a pretty lightweight album. Sure, “Don’t Push Me” manages to break free and stomp about a bit to pleasing effect, but elsewhere there are plenty of nice tunes but not a great deal of, as the English say, Oomph. Stuff like “Free” is frisky enough, sounding pretty much like modern day Bon Jovi stuff, as does “Without A Sound”, which could easily have slotted into that band‘s “These Days” album. Unfortunately, after these two tracks the album gets so slow that listening top it is like wading through treacle, with four ballads stuck one after another, not helped by the fact that none of them are anything special. The album finishes off with a small rallying cry, namely a neat version of “Heaven & Hell” which sees Bridger try to inject their own style into the song and, for the most part, succeed.

So what we have here is an album that contains some neat stuff, but on the whole needs to try harder. Great vocals from Ilous help, but some of the songs just drag the rest down, and that’s a shame. Certainly not a failure by any means, “Bridger” still have a way to go before they can swing dicks with the big boys.