JAMES CHRISTIAN - "CRAVING"

RATING: RRRr

LABEL: FRONTIERS

REVIEW BY: ALAN HOLLOWAY

Jamea Christian has a long, distinguished history in melodic rock, for his tenure with House of Lords, his songwriting and also for his three solo albums released over the last quarter century, now joined by this, the fourth to come out under his name. Whilst Christian is a known songwriter himself, on "Craving" he has been helped out by Tommy Denander, Chris Pelcer, Jimi Bell, Clif Magness, Alessandro Del Vecchio, Richard Hymas, Charlie Mason and Jeff Kent, so I was expecting a bit of a mixed bag.

A quick peruse of the tracklisting reveals a distinctly, um, Christian slant, and by that I mean the religion rather than the man. I mean, obviously there's a Christian (the man) slant, as it's his bleedin' album! 'Heaven Is A Place In Hell', 'Jesus Wept', 'If There's A God' and 'Pray' make me double check this isn't the new Stryper album, but when the music starts it's definitely of a wimpier nature so everything is OK. 'Heaven Is A Place In Hell' kicks things off in a nice, lively manner, aggressively melodic and making good use of Chritian's raspy, tuneful vocals. Follow up 'Wild Boys' is a bouncy affair that's pretty good but really loses out by leaving the guitars at the back of the mix, whilst the title track is an acoustic affair that is a pretty nice tune. A mixed bag? Definitely. 'Jesus Wept' is a mid paced melodic track that really hits the spot with a smooth refrain, 'World of Possibility' is a rather stale acoustic number, whilst 'Sidewinder' is another upbeat guitar fuelled aggressive melodic number and it certainly looks like a pattern has formed, and it contunues til the end, where the album limps home with the dull as ditchwater 'Pray'. Before that, however, we do get possibly the best track, the in your face 'Black Wan't Black', featuring some sweet guitar widdling from Jimi Bell.

So with 'Cracing' James Christian has delivered a package that mixes acoustic tracks, mid range smoothies and hard hitting melodic rockers in equal measure. The heavier tracks all work very well, as do the mid paced ones for the most part, but a couple of the acousticnumbers are so damn syrupy and devoid of charm that they totally disrupt the flow of the album. Despite this, there's a lot of good music here, and Christian's vocals are as good as ever, but too mahy cooks make this broth less sweet than it could have been.