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".

Rock Blog #31: Palace, Amaranthe, Black Diamonds

MALMÖ MELODIC is going on as I write this, I should be there but it wasn’t possible this time. Apparently some really good sets have been played by bands like Houston, Romeo’s Daughter and Grand, to name a few. Maybe next time…

Meanwhile, I’ve been listening to a lot of music now that I’ve been on my own a couple of days, catching up on new releases and looking back at some old ones. 

The most listened artist this week has been PALACE, who just released his best album so far, ”Reckless Heart” (RRRRr). It’s tailormade for beautiful summer days and nights: uplifting, melodic, catchy! Some of the melodies have that annoying ”where have I heard this before” thing, but somehow it doesn’t bother me much, because the songs are so good!  There’s a song called ”Back To ´85” which might give you a clue about the style - the 80’s vibe is very strong here. You need references? How about Toto, Alias, Journey, Brother Firetribe, Nestor… that sort of ear candy.

I revisited the whole Palace back catalogue yesterday, and I think my second favourite album is ”Rock And Roll Radio”, with ”One 4 The Road” and ”Master Of The Universe” close behind. Strangely enough, Palace’s second album ”Binary Music” doesn’t really work for me, none of the songs made it to my ”Best Of Palace” playlist.

AMARANTHE’S ”The Catalyst” was released in February and it kind of slipped through the cracks after the first spin. I gave it another go the other day, and I like it. A few albums ago I was slowly losing faith in the band, but they’ve found their magic again. The title track, ”Damnation Flame”, ”Interference”, ”Outer Dimensions” and ”Resistance” are among my favourites. ”Bangers”, as the youngsters call ’em. RRRR

BLACK DIAMONDS, Swiss sleaze rockers left a positive impression with their previous album ”No-Tell Hotel”, and their latest one ”Destination Paradise”  (RRRR) is at least as good as that one. The vocals of Mich Kehl have that nasal snarl dominant in the glam/sleaze genre, but musically the band isn’t really that sleazy at all, their songs are melodic hard rock with strong hooks. Check out ”After The Rain”, ”Paradise” or ”Everyday Heroes”! Oh yeah, they cover Belinda Carlisle’s ”Leave A Light On”.

To be continued any day now!