Thursday, March 24, 2022

BATTLE BEAST: "Circus Of Doom"

 


Rating: RRRR

Label: Nuclear Blast

Review: Kimmo Toivonen

The third album since the rebirth of the band sees Battle Beast going for an ever more grandiose, bombastic sound. Orchestration and big choirs galore, and vocalist Noora Louhimo belting it out... this is massive music indeed. 

The first half of the album contains most  of the bombastic material, while on the second half the band lighten the mood a little with the likes of "Russian Roulette" and "The Road To Avalon", both blessed with irrestistable pop-metal hooks. They're among my favourites, as is the similary catchy "Eye Of The Storm".   "Wings Of Light" and "Armageddon" are hook-laden tracks too, but somehow they remind me a lot of Anette-era Nightwish. Not that it's a bad thing.

The straight-forward power metal of the first Battle Beast albums is pretty much a thing of the past, but I for one don't miss it. 

https://battlebeast.fi


ZADRA: "Guiding Star"

 


Review: RRRr

Label: Frontiers

Review: Kimmo Toivonen

Guitarist/vocalist August Zadra has worked with Dennis De Young and Waiting For Monday, but now he has stepped into the limelight as the frontman of ZADRA, a project named after him. People involved include Jeff Scott Soto, Alessandro Del Vecchio and many more, even Dennis De Young plays a keyboard solo on one of the songs. 

For what it's worth, this doesn't sound like a typical Frontiers project. This is a rather varied one, with some songs harking back to the seventies, when Kansas, Journey and Styx ruled the airwaves. "Take My Hand" for example - very much in the Kansas mould. The same goes for the short, oddball intro song "Come Together". Then again, "Nothing More To Say" skips the next decade and fall into the early nineties' AOR mood, when bands like Tall Stories were adding a bit of an alternative vibe to their sound.

My favourite tracks fall somewhere between the 80's sound and contemporary AOR: "Ship Of Fools", "Escape The Rain" and "I'll Meet You In Heaven". I guess they're some of the more traditional melodic rock songs, but I can't help it, I'm a sucker for big choruses and certain familiarity!

Talking about familiarity, "Come Back To Me" goes beyond that. It took me a minute to figure it out, but then it hit me: the song wants desperately to be Tommy Shaw's "Dangerous Game"! It isn't, but it's disturbingly close... 

https://www.facebook.com/augustzadramusic


TEN: "Here Be Monsters"

 


Rating: RRRRr

Label: Frontiers

Review: Kimmo Toivonen

Apparently the first of two albums put together at the same time, "Here Be Monsters" is what Gary Hughes and co. did during the downtime of Covid years. The sequel will see the light of day later this year I guess, much like the double shot of first two TEN albums back in 1996. 

I have to say that the last couple of Ten albums haven't really done much for me, but I'm glad to say that on this album Gary Hughes seems to have found his knack for great melodies again. It's not like he's changed the sound or style of the band dramatically, but somehow many of these songs represent the essence of Ten quite brilliantly - poetic, intelligent lyrics, melancholic melodies and catchy hooks, not to mention stellar musicianship and of course Gary's deep voice.

I like just about all the songs on the album, but from track 2 to track 7 the band showcase 5 songs all worthy of a placement on a "Best Of Ten" playlist, future Ten classics such as "Hurricane", "The Dream That Fell To Earth" and "Chapter And Psalm", to name a few. 

One minor complaint though - a few of the songs start quite similary, with the chorus melody sung by Gary on top of sparse instrumentation. But that's about it, "Here Be Monsters" goes straight to the top 5 of Ten albums for sure!

www.tenoffcial.com

Tuesday, March 1, 2022

FM: "Thirteen"

 

LABEL: Frontiers

RATING: RRRRr 

 Review By: Alan Holloway 

Not to be confused with Black Sabbath's identically titled album from 2013 (hey – it could happen), '13' is, unsurprisingly, UK melodic rock stalwarts FM's thirteenth album, as long as we all agree that 'Rockville' I & II were two albums, which they were. Playing on the traditionally spooky 'Friday The 13th' thing, the cover has a haunted house on it, though knowing FM it's full of kittens and unicorns, because they ain't no scary band!

In what seems to be a deliberate move these days, the album starts with a more chugging track rather than smooth AOR. You can file 'Shaking The Tree' with such openers as 'Black Magic' or 'Digging Up The Dirt' and, like those tracks, it's a serviceable opener that amused me when it used the hoary old line 'Seen it in the paper, heard it on the news'. Things pick up with 'Waiting On Love', the catchy, energetic and AOR-tastic first single, whilst 'Talk Is Cheap' is another heavier track with a good melody and cracking chorus. Last in the opening salvo is the best track on the album (for me, anyway), and that's 'Turn This Car Around'. Currently available as the second promo single, this is FM at their absolute melodic rock peak, with a really energetic pace, a great chorus and the chance for Steve Overland to demonstrate exactly why he's regarded as a master of the melodic singing arts.

As this is an FM album, we get a ballad, which comes in half way through the album. 'Long Road Home'; is a beautifully soulful track with a spoonful of blues heaped on top. Perhaps the catchiest chorus award has to go to 'Be Lucky', and it's a stronger reviewer than me who isn't humming 'If you can't be good, be lucky' for the rest of the day after hearing it just once. Saying that, it's followed by the punchy and bluesy 'Every Man Needs A Woman', which has a proper “whoah whoah” in the chorus that does it's best to kick the previous track out of your earworm cavity. FM are bastards for this, and 'Thirteen' has plenty of moments that come back to haunt you as you're trying to get off to sleep.

'Thirteen' is, for me, a real shot in the arm for FM after 2020s 'Synchronized', which was an enjoyable album but not a killer. This one is a blast from start to finish, the usual eleven tracks (should have been thirteen, really...) with no experimentation, no heroics in sight. A great FM album is made by the songs, and this one has an excess of quality tracks, flitting between chunkier, bluesy stuff and pure AOR without missing a beat. It's a given that the band don't miss a track musically, as they're one of the tightest units in the game, and whilst Steve Overland gets deserved praise for the vocals, never forget the efforts of Jupp, Goldsworthy, Davis and Kirkpatrick, now entering their fourteenth year as a full band.

Fucking Marvellous... 

Official Website