Joe Bonamassa - Royal Tea (2020)

Country: USA
Style: Blues Rock
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 2 Oct 2020
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Joe Bonamassa has had quite the career: playing Stevie Ray Vaughan's Scuttle Buttin' at six and being B. B. King's opening act at twelve. The key snippet of trivia that seems to apply here is that, in 2013, he played four shows in London with three different backing bands to showcase different aspects of his music. It's that versatility that pervades this album, which is surely why the opener is the opener, instead of the title track. The way it starts out, it's a blues album, a pop album and a rock album all at once, and it only adds genres from there.

Now, there are blues rockers here like we might expect from Bonamassa but they don't kick things off. When One Door Opens kicks things off in a rather varied style. It's the longest song on the album and it constantly morphs, from movie soundtrack to rock song but becomes pop song when the vocals are introduced, with a delicate female voice effectively echoing the male lead. The effect is rather like an epic Beatles suite, with strings and chimes and constant invention, but it's also a heavy song when it wants to be, with some powerful riffs and a drum section borrowed from Diamond Head's Am I Evil?

Maybe it's appropriate to kick off like the Beatles when you recorded at Abbey Road, but it's the title track that points the way forward. While Bonamassa has acknowledged influences from the American originals, what drives him is apparently the British bluesmen who took the blues to Blighty and reinvented it to fuel the next generation of rock music. This song sounds quintessentially British and, while I'm not sure who plays on it, it certainly channels the heavy British blues sound of Cream with a side of the Rolling Stones.

I do know that Bernie Marsden plays on here somewhere and I'll be shocked if it isn't on Why Does It Take So Long to Say Goodbye at the very least. This is one of four songs he co-wrote and it often feels like an old school Whitesnake blues rock number, part emotional ballad and part searing rocker. Two of the others are High Class Girl and I Didn't Think She Would Do It, both blues rockers and with the latter easily the most overt such on the album.

While the blues is the basis for everything from Royal Tea onwards, it's consistently the British blues that Bonamassa wants to explore here and that means that there's still considerable variety on offer. Lookout Man! is a blues stomper with what I can only assume is a guitar that's masquerading as bass. It's an emphatic song, the sort that feels like a weaker effort but gets under your skin anyway and you end up seeking out, like Midnight Rambler. Lonely Boy is a rock 'n' roll song, with guest honky tonk piano from Jools Holland and with Dave Stewart in there somewhere too.

I can't place all the influences but there are many and I can tell that it's not so straightforward as for this song to be like John Mayall and that one to channel Rory Gallagher. Both are all over the album, along with Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Jeff Beck and others. Oddly, or perhaps not, this is really about the songs rather than the solos, because there aren't as many of the latter as I'd have expected.

And, even if everything is supposed to be British, there's some clear American influence here too. The most obvious is Savannah, which is emphatically southern rock with a hefty side of country, but I feel an epic southern rock flavour in Beyond the Silence, possibly my favourite song here. It doesn't sound like Molly Hatchet but it feels like the sort of song they'd write, just without anyone playing chicken picking guitar or providing an extended guitar workout to take us home.

As these are two of the last three songs, I wonder if it's Bonamassa looking back on his British album with pride and simultaneously looking forward to his return to the States. After all, he's always been a prolific artist who moves from one project to another. One minute he's playing in a hard rock band, Black Country Communion, the next he's collaborating with Beth Hart or Mahalia Barnes, with Rock Candy Funk Party always floating in his mind. This is a enjoyably varied British blues album but that clearly isn't all it is.

Accuser - Accuser (2020)

Country: Germany
Style: Thrash Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 13 Nov 2020
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Here's another band who have been there and back a number of times over their career and are doing good things again. Usually in these instances, there's a key member who was a mainstay throughout and has guided the band through whatever changes they've gone through. These four musicians have all got long tenures with the band but not one of them completed Accuser's initial eighteen year run, let alone the whole time since they were founded in 1986.

If there's a key member, it's Frank Thoms, the only founder member and the only musician here on the band's debut album, The Conviction, in 1987. He's also the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist. Next up would be René Schütz on lead guitar, as he joined later that year and is on his third stint with Accuser, even if four years of that were spent when the band was called Scartribe. His return last year restores the line-up to what it was from 2002-2011 before he left.

They play thrash metal, but not in the Teutonic style we might expect from a band hailing from North Rhine-Westphalia. Thoms certainly has a German accent and he's the main reason why this doesn't all sound even more Bay Area than it already does, but the closest comparisons are mostly the American bands from way back in the day: early Exodus and Megadeth, especially. The most blistering song here is The Eliminator and that's a giveaway because the riff is similar to Whiplash's Warmonger while the first words are "Killing is my business and business is..." OK, it's fine here, rather than good, but you get the point.

I love the burst of speed that song provides, because much of this album focuses on a slightly slower approach, material that ought to work really well once venues open back again and Accuser can really get their pits churning. Even technical songs like Rethink and Seven Lives ought to do that and that's a good indicator of quality. I'm interested in how the pit would respond to the final track, an unusual cover of Foreigner's Urgent, a song I last heard in a completely different version by Shannon that was a synthpop soul take.

What really elevates this album, to my ears, is René Schütz's guitar. He doesn't often stick to the tried and true, though he plays it well when he does. Just listen to the midsection of A Cycle's End, with the rhythm section keeping up the churn while he plays a fascinating solo that isn't remotely what we're expecting from thrash metal. The riff above a riff in the second half is wild too and it's appropriate to give him the the last word on this song after everyone else has put their instruments away. Frankly, I found that I was gradually starting to listen just to Schütz and had to go back to hear everyone else's parts.

That's not to say that Thoms doesn't generate some interesting aspects himself. There's spoken word on Lux in Tenebris and Temple of All is elevated by some atmospheric vocals that are almost exotic in nature, clearly an attempt to channel Egyptian ambience into the song. This may be Schütz's show to my thinking but Thoms keeps the rest of the band tight while his lead guitarist is doing whatever he's doing, whether the section is thrash or slowing down to a more heavy metal sound.

And then there's the wildest song, which isn't Urgent but Be None the Wiser. It starts out almost like a heavy metal band covering an alternative rock song. If it is, I don't recognise it. That's a really dirty and prowling bass from Frank Kimpel and a vocal from Thoms that alternates between soft and hard. I presume he's both voices. I'm not convinced that this song really works, but it's an interesting listen, the product of a band who clearly aren't trying to get by with the same ol' same ol'.

I believe this is the twelfth studio album from Accuser and they're easily in their most prolific period, with as many of them in the last decade as in the two and half before that. I believe they've dabbled in the usual side genres for thrash bands, going off the rails in the early nineties, then doing the groove thang and eventually coming back to their traditional sound with those experiments flavouring their approach. To release a self-titled album twelve in is a real statement and I hope it's because Schütz is firmly back and enjoying himself.

Kim Mitchell - The Big Fantasize (2020)

Country: Canada
Style: Rock
Rating: 6/10
Release Date: 13 Nov 2020
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I was excited to see Kim Mitchell's name crop up on the coming soon list and eagerly checked out the album when it dropped. It's his eighth solo album, his first in thirteen years, with five earlier albums when he was the lead singer for Max Webster. My introduction to Mitchell was his biggest hit, maybe his only solo hit, a quirky 1984 song from Akimbo Alogo called Go for Soda. Maybe that led me down a wrong path but, whenever I hear those names, I think quirky, unusual and offbeat. That's emphatically not what this is.

Yeah, The Big Fantasize was a big surprise me for me. The track that kicks off the album, Red Horizon, is soft rock and very soft rock at that. It's built entirely as a soft vocal over acoustic guitar, with some underpinning strings coming in later, and, quite frankly, it might play well to a country audience. No, it's not hunk in a hat generic but, if this works for rock fans, it would be the sort of folk who worship James Taylor.

Much of this album plays in this vein. Wishes is quintessential singer/songwriter material, but from a singer/songwriter who's playing it a little safe. The vocals are pure but there's a country twang that's creeping in on Montgomery. The Old Marriage Waltz, a quintessential singer/songwriter song title if I've ever heard one, is a little more powerful and Summer Lovers Autumn Wine and My Georgian Bay play in the same vein but with more urgency. They feel like this there's a band here, not just Mitchell under a spotlight, sitting on a bar stool with his acoustic guitar and microphone.

The soft song I liked the most is Time to Stay, which wraps up the album. It's a more thoughtful piece, with an effective electric guitar, very much in the vein of Mark Knopfler, if not utilising his particular vocal or guitar styles. I need to check out some of the other later Kim Mitchell albums, not because I feel a burning desire to listen to them, but to see how his style changed over time. Maybe he's played in this style for twenty years and I just never knew. I've never been more aware that my expectations are based on music that's three and and a half decades old.

The only song that played the way I expected this album to sound was 2Up2Bdown, the quirkiest title on the album and the quirkiest song, not to forget to mention the most upbeat, up tempo and downright rockin' song too. It feels rather out of place in this kind of company, the one and only rocker among eight softer songs. They're mostly quiet and introspective or, if they plug in, they're still restrained and designed around Mitchell's soft vocal. This one is perky, with catchy melodies, a bouncy electric backing and a penchant for messing around in between verses.

Now, I have to rate this on what it is not on what I thought it might be and, to be honest, Mitchell is good at this softer approach. I didn't hate any of these songs. None of them bored me, though a few did drift into the background a little. Time to Stay is a lovely song that gets deeper each time I listen to it; it's primarily voice and guitar but the keyboards are excellent and there's a glorious hint of sax right at the end when it's fading away. And 2Up2Bdown is fun and playful, just as I'd hoped the rest of the album could be.

Draconian - Under a Godless Veil (2020)

Country: Sweden
Style: Gothic Doom Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 30 Oct 2020
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I really miss all those gothic metal bands who formed in the latter half of the nineties with a duelling beauty and the beast vocal approach, usually a clean female voice and a harsh male voice, the former a toss up between ethereal and operatic and the latter a death growl. Most of them seemed to sign with Napalm Records and they released some of my favourite albums of all time, such as Tristania's World of Glass. Well, times have moved on and female fronted metal nowadays tends to mean some variety of symphonic metal, albeit with a notable number of exceptions. Fortunately Draconian never quit or massively changed their sound and I like this album a lot.

The female voice here belongs to Heike Langhans, who joined in 2012 to replace Lisa Johansson. She's perfect for this style, her voice leaning much more towards ethereal than operatic but without any of the frailty that ethereal often suggests. She's ethereal because she wants to be rather than because of necessity and the undercurrent of power means that she holds her own throughout. The male voice is Anders Jacobsson's, as it has been since Draconian was founded in 1994, and his growl has a warmth to it that's rather engaging. He wants to duet or converse with Langhans's voice, not eat her. Yeah, it's a harsh voice but it's not an evil one.

Perhaps part of that is that, while Draconian are often described as gothic doom/death, there's really not a lot of death here outside of Jacobsson's voice. Sure, the lineage clearly goes back to bands like My Dying Bride and Anathema, but they've moved firmly into gothic doom. This is slow stuff and it's heavy and full of melancholy but, even when Jacobsson has the lead, it rarely enters death territory. Some songs, like The Sacrificial Flame, have that extra darkness that doom/death tends to find, and it can't be denied that, when The Sethian heavies up, there's death metal for sure, Jacobsson's vocals let loose and the drums sped up considerably, but these are exceptions not the rule.

The album works on a scale, the heaviest sections of The Sethian all the way over at death metal but a song like Burial Fields at the opposite end, built out of atmosphere and ethereal female vocals with a clean male narrator also entering the fray. It can't really be called an interlude to separate the halves of the album as it's four and a half minutes long and it's vocal throughout. It's obviously a song of its own, but with a nod to post-punk or new wave bands like early Dead Can Dance or maybe Shriekback. I should add that The Sethian actually continues in that post-punk vein until the point where it heavies up.

It's a generous album, its ten tracks running over an hour, but it's never boring because of how widely the band explore that scale. Sure, most of it is slow and heavy, but the tempo varies throughout and a primary feature is the alternation between vocals, with Langhans and Jacobsson rarely singing at the same time, handing off between themselves like they're passing a baton. Notably, the intensity of the music doesn't necessarily change at the same time. There are points where Langhans sings over more intense music and others where Jacobsson sings in more delicate sections.

There are points where they both sing at the same time and I particularly enjoy those. Sometimes it's simultaneous lines, like on Sleepwalkers and Moon over Sabaoth, where it enrichens the already rich music behind them. There's some glorious decoration too; I particularly like the vocalised melodies in Moon over Saboath that Langhans provides behind Jacobsson's lead. They really elevate that song, as Jacobsson's chanting elevates The Sacrificial Flame.

I've talked way too much about the vocals, but it's hard to avoid them. I'd still enjoy Draconian if they fired both vocalists and went completely instrumental (which is not going to and shouldn't happen). I simply feel that the band behind them is mostly creating an environment for those vocals to play in. I should note that, while the lyrics are written by the vocalists, the music nowadays is written by Johan Ericson, originally the band's drummer but their lead guitarist since 2002. It seems like much of it is there either to provide a texture or to punctuate points for emphasis.

I liked this immediately but it's a nice grower of an album. None of the songs particularly leap out as highlights, though I think the strongest material is at the heart of the album, maybe from Moon over Sabaoth to Claw Marks on the Throne, but none of them are disposable either; even at an hour, all of them have their place. Now, I really ought to check out the previous album, Sovran, in 2015, the debut of Langhans with Draconian.

Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons - We're the Bastards (2020)

Country: UK
Style: Hard Rock
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 13 Nov 2020
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I reviewed Phil Campbell's long planned collaborative solo album last year, but here's the new release from his current band, Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons. In case you've been on another planet for the last few years, that's the former Motörhead guitarist and his three sons: Todd on the other guitar, Tyla on bass and Dane on drums. Only vocalist Neil Starr isn't related, as far as I'm aware. This is their second album, following 2018's The Age of Absurdity and a self-titled EP in 2016.

As you might imagine, there's a strong Motörhead influence here, but it's not overwhelming. The two most obvious Motörhead songs are Keep Your Jacket On and Hate Machine but, oddly, they remind of the older style when that band was a trio with Fast Eddie on guitar rather than the later, heavier band with Campbell on board. Mostly, this is hard rock with a strong grounding in the blues, and we realise that long before Desert Song hammers the point home, plus an influence from a whole slew of British hard rock legends, especially when it comes to riffs.

Promises are Poison often reminds of Michael Schenker-era UFO, which is never a bad thing. Lie to Me is built on a Black Sabbath feel with some riffs that sound rather familiar but which I can't place. Yes, I'll be waking up in the middle of the night Thursday thinking, "Oh yeah, it's...". Talking of familiar, it is very difficult to listen to Animals without hearing Owner of a Lonely Heart. That's surely one of the most recognisable riffs ever and this borrows the first three of its five notes, albeit heavied up so the result doesn't sound like Yes at all. It's still distracting though. Destroyed is a punkier number with a Ramones feel.

This older time feel is mostly countered by the vocals of Neil Starr, who also sings lead for the grunge-inspired States and Empires. He's sung for alternative rock bands too so his background seems to be a lot different to the Campbells, but he fits very well alongside them. Combined with the fact that this is clearly hard rock rather than heavy metal, the end result is that I'm not surprised that the band are so popular in the New Wave of Classic Rock community.

This is another generous album, with the core thirteen songs taking us well past fifty minutes. Twelve of them are very consistent, with the closer, Waves, playing in a very different, much more alternative style. I can only assume that this is a song that comes from Starr's roots rather than the Campbells. It feels a lot softer than anything that comes before it, but it's not really a ballad and it sounds decent, holding my interest for almost seven minutes because it's easily the longest song here.

I wouldn't mind hearing an album from a band who make songs like Waves, though I'd prefer one from Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons, one that technically wraps up with a set of four bonus songs that were recorded live at the Kerrang! Sessions, whatever they are. That's Big Mouth, from their 2016 EP, Freak Show and Dark Days from their debut album. The older songs sound good, Dark Days especially, but the new ones sound better. And, to take it all home: a cover of Rock 'n' Roll, not by Led Zeppelin but by Motörhead. It's not necessary at all but it is interesting, especially it's easily the heaviest thing on this album.

Diamond Head - Lightning to the Nations 2020 (2020)

Country: UK
Style: Heavy Metal
Rating: 8/10
Release Date: 27 Nov 2020
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I'm aware that different people found rock and metal at different times and we're at different points on our respective journeys through these genres. So, if you haven't heard the original 1980 version of Lightning to the Nations by Diamond Head, then quit reading this and go out and buy it right now. I promise you that you won't be disappointed. It's without a doubt one of the best, if not the absolute best heavy metal album ever recorded. Then come on back and we'll talk about this one.

I'm not usually a fan of re-recorded albums, but for the fortieth anniversary of this milestone release, Diamond Head took that approach. Given that the only member of the band to play on both versions is guitarist Brian Tatler, this could easily be seen as Diamond Head covering a Diamond Head album, which is a little odd but worth looking at for a few reasons.

For one, there have been serious advances in production made over the past four decades that hint at this sounding a lot meatier. For another, current vocalist Rasmus Bom Andersen, who shone on their previous album, last year's The Coffin Train (whose title track was easily my favourite song of 2019) is a born and bred heavy metal singer while Sean Harris, the band's original vocalist, was really more of a hard rock singer. That mix of genres is part of why Diamond Head sounded so interesting from the outset, but it's also arguably why they kept splitting up. And, thirdly, there are bonus tracks here, but I'll get them soon enough.

If we can take it as a given that every song here is a 10/10 bona fide classic, the point of this review has to be to look at these versions of them to see if you should listen to this instead of the original. And I would say, as a die hard Diamond Head fan, that the jury's out on that. I need both. You might too. I'm a big fan of some of what happens on this album but not all of it and I don't know yet if getting used to these versions would be enough. After all, they all play in my head and where there are differences, I have to make a judgement call as to whether each of them is a good change or not.

Just listen to the beginning of Lightning to the Nations. Andersen starts out trying to be Sean Harris and he fails. Then he holds a long note that Harris couldn't have done and he sells his presence there and then. Overall, I think he fits this material better but that doesn't mean that some of what he does doesn't rub me the wrong way. Some of it, I'll get used to. Some of it, I'm not sure. And much of that hesitation is going to be about the vocals.

Overall, I had two initial reactions which oppose each other.

One is that this isn't as urgent or alive as the original. For almost the whole way through, it's clearly more careful and more controlled. Even a particularly wild song like The Prince, which blisters along magnificently here, still feels like it's on a leash, even if that leash happens to be a long one. I think a lot of this has to do with the drums. They're prominent in the mix and they feel like they're slowing the band down. Most of these songs always need to be both faster and louder and, even when they're played by thrash metal bands who were notably inspired by Diamond Head, I still want more volume and more speed. Even on the original, I'm always mentally urging the band to speed it up and I feel the same here, just a little more so.

The other is that it still sounds damn good. When I hear cover versions of iconic songs, I tend to hate them instantly. April Wine didn't do a bad job of 21st Century Schizoid Man. Dream Theater didn't do a bad job of Stargazer. Pat Benatar didn't do a bad job of Wuthering Heights. But I hate every one of those songs because we know exactly how all they should sound and it's not like that. And that said, I didn't hate this at all, not on a first listen and less still as I get used to it. I was prepared to but I just didn't and there are moments that I really like. The complete stop in The Prince is majestic. The echo is fantastic all the way through this but that single moment left me grinning like a madman.

So I guess it boils down to this. Every one of these new versions is excellent. At points, I forgot that I was listening to a new version because it equals or outdoes the original. Quite frankly, this version of Helpless kicks the ass of the old one. At points, though, it was obvious and the original still holds the edge. Sucking My Love doesn't suck here but it's not as good as the original. So it's a mixed bag, from a more mature but less energetic band.

If you're a die hard Diamond Head fan like me, this is essential, even if you'll find yourself listening to both versions because this does not replace the version you have. If you're not, then this is still worth checking out, unlike the majority of similar releases. It's a damn good album on its own merits and it absolutely does not pale in comparison with the original. And if you don't like Diamond Head, then I doubt this will convert you and I hope that I cover a varied enough swathe of the spectrum that you'll find something in what I review that you'll dig.

And that leaves us with the covers.

The one I heard before the album came out is a true gem and it's a dream come true for me, or at least part of one. It's No Remorse, from Metallica's album Kill 'Em All, which means that Diamond Head are covering Metallica who made Diamond Head famous by covering them. If I haven't lost count over the years, Metallica have covered four of the seven songs on this album now and I'd love for them to cover the whole thing. I'd similarly love for Diamond Head to cover the whole of Kill 'Em All. No Remorse is a glorious start. Even though Andersen tries far too hard to sound like James Hetfield, which was not at all necessary, this is better than the original, especially when it speeds up at the five minute mark. Honest. The next minute is the best minute of music I've heard this year.

That leaves Immigrant Song, Sinner and Rat Bat Blue, the originals by Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest and Deep Purple respectively. Immigrant Song and Sinner sound surprisingly good for songs that nobody needs to cover. Rat Bat Blue is a real deep cut. Not only is it not one of the famous Purple songs, it's not even one I remember. It turns out to be on the Who Do We Think We Are album, which I probably last heard in the mid eighties. It does sound Purply and it has some real energy to it. I like all three.

And this has to be the longest music review I've ever written. Whew. Now to start this album over. In the meantime, the original Lightning to the Nations is a 10/10. I don't give out maximums to albums that have just come out because I believe they have to prove they can last a few years to be worthy of one, but I'll go with an 8/10 for this one rather than a 9/10. When it's great, it's really great. When it's not, it's still pretty damn good. Everything on it is highly recommended. But it doesn't have the edge of the original, I don't think.

Qilin - Petrichor (2020)

Country: France
Style: Stoner Rock
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 13 Nov 2020
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Petrichor is one of my favourite words and one that I don't get to use very often here in Phoenix, AZ, because it so rarely rains here. Well, it did yesterday, breaking a 110 day stretch without measurable rainfall, and that means that I can absolutely use it today. Looking outside this morning, most of the rain had dried up, leaving just the petrichor emanating from what little grass we have in our yard. If I'd waited for the next rain to review Qilin, this album wouldn't be remotely new any more.

Instrumental stoner rock has become one of my favourite genres, though I'm not well grounded in it yet. It didn't really exist back in the eighties, at least under that name, and I wasn't paying attention in the early nineties when stoner rock was conjured up by bands like Monster Magnet, Fu Manchu and Kyuss. The instrumental take on the genre came later, mostly in Europe but also here in the US with bands like Karma to Burn. I didn't notice until I started to deep dive into rock and metal again and found that it grown into a huge scene.

I've never heard Qilin before, but then this is their debut album. They're from Paris, the one in France not the one in Texas, and, outside a demo and a single, both released in 2017, this is the first material they've shared with the world. It doesn't really transport me anywhere, the way some of the bands with a heavier psychedelic flavour often do, but it sounds damn good. The riffs are heavy and the bass isn't so buried in fuzz that I can't tell what it's doing. There are repetitive sections that push for trancelike states, but there are also a lot of dynamics to keep this varied.

The songs have time to breathe too because, while this album runs for over three quarters of an hour, there are only six tracks on offer. It kicks off with the eight and a half minute Through the Fire, which is interesting because of how it starts and ends heavy but gets a lot calmer in the midsection, as if the fire itself is a peaceful cleanser of pain. The next three songs vary from four to seven minutes, before giving way to the monsters that close out; Myrmidon's Big Jam and Head of Medusa both run beyond ten minutes. It's worth noting that the three shorter songs appeared on the band's 2017 demo, while the three longer songs didn't. Presumably, the band are growing into their sound.

As I mentioned, this album doesn't transport me to anywhere specific and these songs don't play in a visual way for me, but they never bored me either. The shortest song, Labyrinth, crams a lot into only four minutes, with a number of slower sections and a major jam in the middle of the song, that plays a lot like early Sabbath to me except for the lead guitar, which wails very differently to Tony Iommi. I should add that I wasn't aching for Ozzy to start singing; this works well instrumentally. And the long songs played well for me too, sometimes even better. Head of Medusa is delightfully loose until, five minutes in, it ramps up and tightens up for a while.

I don't know where Cold Pine Highway is, if it's even a real place, but the presumably sampled spoken word intro suggests that maybe it's home to a lunatic asylum. Maybe the different themes buried in this piece represent different inmates or different states of mind. Whether they do or don't, the song sounds great to me. I really like how the lead guitar can enter the fray and have us pay attention, but we never stop following the rhythm section too, whatever the lead's doing. That happens often here.

Other than that intro, there are no voices on this album and it doesn't need them. Whether the songs are long or short, they find their groove and ride it on out. I particularly like the ones that go for two grooves, one when it's really moving and a mellower one in between. I think my favourite must be Sun Strokes the Wall, because it has both those grooves, but also a glorious slowdown a couple of minutes in that almost has us thinking that our playback equipment is dying and then a delightfully chill part right after that. There's a lot going on in this song to explore but it's also immediate.

And that kind of describes the album as a whole. I liked it the moment it started but I've found depths with each time through. And it needed to be good. I'm warming up to the new Diamond Head...

Stan Bush - Dare to Dream (2020)

Country: USA
Style: Melodic Rock
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 20 Nov 2020
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Stan Bush is so close to the quintessence of AOR that it's impossible to separate the two. In fact, he's managed to take it to whole new markets and promptly own them. Can you name anyone else who has won a daytime Emmy and also been inducted into the Transformers Hall of Fame? If you can find one, which I seriously doubt, have they appeared on a Winnie the Pooh collection, given voice to a pair of Jean-Claude Van Damme movies and recorded an iconic number for Sailor Moon? Stan Bush has done all of these things and provided the backing music for a scary number of commercials too.

As you might imagine, that means that he often walks a fine line between melodic rock earworms full of so much emotion that they'll melt your girlfriend's heart and overly generic songs that are almost parodies of the genre. This album starts with one of each. Born to Fight wasn't featured on Kickboxer or Bloodsport, because those were other Stan Bush songs, but this could easily feature on almost any other film starring the Muscles from Brussels. I can hear the slow motion roundhouse kicks. But then Dare to Dream, as catchy as that riff is, is almost like what an AI would create for a Coke advert, it's so immaculately done but without a single ounce of originality.

However jaded we might be and however unwilling we might be to admit it to our girlfriends, Born to Fight is a catchy damn tune and we might find ourselves hearing it quite a lot because it's backing the latest Netflix campaign to promote a couple of of their anime fighting shows. A Dream of Love is fine stuff, again all the words you know you're going to hear in an AOR song just shuffled into a different order, but shuffled really well and with an excellent melody behind them.

If it wasn't for the modern production values obvious on this album, I could believe that The 80's was written in the frickin' eighties. How this one escapes being a parody, I don't know, given that it's like Def Leppard trying to write a John Parr anthem, but it turns out to be another good song. Now, Live and Breathe has a tougher time, being an emotional ballad. I think it works and it's testament to how good Stan Bush is that I'm not automatically hating this one. A singer with less talent and less overt sincerity singing this would fail horribly, but Bush somehow makes it work.

I wish I had the lyrics to this album, just to throw them into some sort of algorithm and figure out if there are actually more than a couple of dozen across the eleven tracks on offer. The album is entitled Dare to Dream, as is the title track. There are two other songs featuring Dream in their titles (A Dream of Love and Dream Big) and many of the others cover exactly the same territory, such as True Believer and Never Give Up. The word "dream" certainly appears in other songs too, like Live and Breathe.

It would seem that there are only ever three items on Stan Bush's daily to do list: loving, fighting and dreaming. I'm not sure what order they should be in and how much crossover there is between hem, but I think that the only other idea here is the eighties and it's clear even that's only because it was the time when he was loving, fighting and dreaming most effectively. Oh OK, there's also Home, which is the final track, as if hinting that maybe there'll be something else on the next album. Spoiler: there won't be; it'll be about loving, fighting and dreaming, but perhaps in a different order. Just check out the last album, Change the World, with numbers like Born to Win, Never Surrender, The Story of Love, Dare and Live Your Dream.

I joke because it's just too easy to do that. I've reviewed a few albums this year that were emphatically and unashamedly rooted in the clichés that pervaded the eighties. Raven spring quickly to mind. The music was fantastic, but it was often cheesy as all get out and we really have collectively moved on in so many ways. However, this is surely the most unapologetic eighties nostalgia I think I've ever heard. I could swear blind I've heard True Believer on an eighties action flick, except Bush just wrote it. Bush even has the exact right proportion of killer voice and hint of breathiness, as if he'd just fought in the Kumite before stepping up to the mike.

By sheer coincidence, I'm working through a bunch of rips of Into the Music to detail their playlists. This was the soft rock show that Tommy Vance of The Friday Rock Show fame presented for a year from 1984 to 1985. I mention it because, had Stan Bush issued this album in 1985, Tommy would have been all over it like a rash and it would be on every Into the Music I listen to.

And, if you're into that sort of melodic rock, this could be the best album you've ever heard. Every one of these songs could have been a single in 1984 and they'd all have done well on the charts. If not, you're going to hate it. With a passion. I kinda sorta want to be the latter but, in the end, I found that I couldn't resist. Now, I'm going to play it again. Dare to dream, folks.