This one seemed to come out of nowhere, with Chez Kane plucked from her family band Kane'd, which also contains her two sisters. Enter Danny Rexon of Crazy Lixx, who saw in Chez the chance to make an unashamedly retro female fronted rock album, with the emphasis on big guitars, powerful vocals and massive hooks. As you can see from the rating above, he definitely succeeded!
"Chez Kane" is, to put in simply, a monster. Every track is in your face, full of hooks and backed up by incredibly powerful and competely fitting vocals. My own take from the firsrt few listend was Chrissy Steele's debut, though you can add Vixen, Lita Ford, Joan Jett, Fiona and just about any goddamned female rocker of pedigree you want. Of course, that pedigree has to be from the mid eighties to early nineties, because that was a GREAT time for powerful female rock, and this album puts me back there every single time, and I'll confess I've streamed this promo more than any other I've been sent in the past.
Straight off, this kicks you in the nuts with "Better Than Love", a catchy number Cher would have loved in her rockier days, whilst "All Of It" uses a "We Will Rock You Beat" combined with a ridiculously catchy chorus and is probably my favourite track, simply because I can't help singing along every bloody time. A perfect opening salvo is completed by single "Rocket On The Radio", a five and a half minute track that seems to whizz by in three and will have even a dead rocker's toes tapping. This continues for a total of ten tracks and forty five minutes, after which the natural inclination is to do it all over again. In the middle of the album is the one slower track "Defender of The Heart", though it's not a sappy ballad and has a decent bounce to it. We also get "Ball & Chain" which borrows a bit from Danger Danger's "Bang Bang" and Bon Jovi's "You Give Love A Bad Name", and that sort of shows you the sort of influences you're dealing with here. "Midnight Rendezvous" is another worthy of mention, as it's a fast track full of energy and, of course, a great hook.
If you, like me, miss the good old days of powerful women singing powerful, catchy rock tunes that can be played on the radio but also blow your socks off live, then this is the album for you. Check out "Rocket On The Radio" on youtube, then go down the rabbit hole to check out some of Chez's superb cover versions from a few years ago. Kane'd may have languished in obscurity for quite a few years, but Danny Rexon and Frontiers realized that Chez Kane has one of those voices that is pure gold if you give her the right material, and "Chez Kane" is absolutely stuffed with the right material.
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