Wucan - Heretic Tongues (2022)

Country: Germany
Style: Psychedelic Rock
Rating: 8/10
Release Date: 20 May 2022
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Shifting from a German band with world fame and six decades of history behind them to a German band that I hadn't heard of, I should mention that this is easily my pick of the two albums. This one is the third full length from a Dresden-based band called Wucan that I hadn't previously heard of, but it utterly floored me. They've combined a number of easily defined influences with others I'm sure are unknown to me and stirred them up into a very potent, very energetic new sound that I'd expect to connect with certain modern-looking audiences as much as other very old school ones.

The first obvious influence is Jethro Tull, because there's a flute from the opening of the opening track, Kill the King, and it's played in a fashion notably reminiscent of Ian Anderson. However, the song moves in other directions and the Tull influences don't really show up until later, with songs like Fette Deutsch, which owes more than a little to Locomotive Breath. While we may think of Tull as a quieter folk rock band (remember the surprise when they won that Grammy), they rocked out often, especially on stage, and it's their heavier numbers from them that show up most here.

In between that initial flute and the real Tull influence, Black Sabbath wander in to highlight their importance too. Don't Break the Oath has a riff that's so Sabbath that I even recognise it as a key change in Wheels of Confusion. Like Kill the King, it moves on elsewhere but it never truly forgets that Sabbath nod. It was here that I really started thinking genre, because this is psychedelic rock without any doubt, but it doesn't venture far into the usual genres that Sabbath set into motion. It's not heavy metal. It's not stoner rock. It's not doom metal. And it trawls in sounds that come a long way from anything that Tull or Sabbath put their name to over the decades.

And here I need to go back to the beginning, because there's so much more in Kill the King than an obvious flute. It has strong riffs from the beginning but funky changes too; searing vocals from an outstanding throat that promptly shifts into scat singing and other vocalisations; the tasty combo of bass runs and handclaps; and a real urgency that never leaves the album, even when it's willing to take a breather. That voice belongs to Francis Tobolsky, with whom I immediately fell hopelessly in love and admiration. What is it about German rock singers? Yes, Doro, you stole my heart first.

I should mention here that, while she's obviously listened to Janis Joplin on far more than a casual basis, her band was definitely paying attention to what Big Brother & The Holding Company did on the stage behind her as well. That sixties psychedelia, rooted in the blues of the past but pointing the way firmly forward to the new genres of the seventies, is everywhere here, as are some of the latter genres, most obviously funk but krautrock and disco too, especially on the closer, Physical Boundaries, a jam that takes us on a funky journey through the cosmos for twelve and a half minutes, like a combination of Can, Hawkwind and Funkadelic jamming at Monterey Pop with Ian Anderson as a special guest.

The funk was there from the beginning in Kill the King but the disco shows up on the two parts of Far and Beyond, combining that genre's incessant drive with a more recognisable rock one that I recognised from Magnum's Kingdom of Madness, probably not uncoincidentally another song to prominently feature a flute. Tobolsky owns everything she touches but Patrik Dröge lays down an impressive and very patient bass in Far and Beyond that thoroughly grabbed me long before that voice showed up to cement the deal.

The only track I haven't mentioned is the one I like least and, amazingly enough, that's the cover, because Kill the King is not the Rainbow song nor Don't Break the Oath the Mercyful Fate track. I haven't heard this one before, because it's Zwischen Liebe und Zorn, from a Soviet era band from East Germany called the Klaus Renft Combo. It wasn't even an album track, having been released as a single in 1972, not something I assume was heard widely in the west.

In this version, it's good (and it sounds even better when I listened on headphones) but it uses two singers, the other one male, and, quite frankly, anyone who picks up a mike alongside Tobolsky will inevitably be compared to her and just as inevitably lose. Whoever this is doesn't try to compete in the slightest, yet fails anyway and the song is lesser for it. It's why I didn't automatically go with a 9/10 here but I may well end up doing that anyway.

I absolutely must see Wucan live. They seem like the sort of band who could get an entire stadium audience to pay attention to them, even when everyone showed up to see someone else, and then utterly lift the lid off the small club next door. It's at times like this and when I first heard the Blue Merrow album in January that I wonder why I moved to North America. All the bands I'm aching to see live are back in Europe and not even in England either but over on the continent.

Scorpions - Rock Believer (2022)

Country: Germany
Style: Hard Rock/Heavy Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 25 Feb 2022
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I guess the question we're supposed to ask here is whether we're rock believers or not and it's the sort of question you expect to hear from the Scorpions. It's a cheesy cliché of a question, of course, and it could be argued that the Scorpions have become a cheesy cliché of a band, a caricature of a continent's worth of metal music that's rocking us like a hurricane, baby, but the thing is that the band is still seriously on the ball, even this far into their run. Rudy Schenker formed the Scorpions back in 1965, so they've been around forever, and they're still doing the job in a millennium that is somehow an impossible distance from 1984.

Gas in the Tank is a perfect opener, in that it's yet another generic rock song with clumsy lyrics but with a solid riff and a real drive to it, highlighting that these guys still feel the thrill of the music, even in their seventies. Could that ever be summed up better by the bridge in the title track, with its lyric of "our fathers came to steal but we came back to make you feel our love in every song we play." Yeah, we know who "our fathers" are there and stealing was hardly the worst of their many sins but we also know that the Scorpions meant this well and they're heartfelt in their feelings. In the parlance of this album, they're rock believers.

By the way, this particular bunch of rock believers has been consistent only for six years now. That memorably accented voice belongs to Klaus Meine, as it has for longer than I've been alive, given that he joined in 1969. The memorable lead guitar belongs to Matthias Jabs, a fixture since 1978, and he's the highlight here for me, as he so often is on Scorpions albums. The rhythm section isn't as longstanding though, Schenker excepted, and they're a quality international bunch who aren't listed strictly by their real names.

I haven't heard Pavel Maciwoda (short for Paweł Mąciwoda-Jastrzębski) before, their Polish bass player, but anyone who played in a thrash metal band called Virgin Snatch ought to fit well within the mindset of the Scorpions. He's slung their bass since 2004 and he's clearly a reliable fixture in their sound nowadays. On drums, though, is someone I've seen live a few times, pounding skins for Motörhead, because it's Mickey Dee (for Micael Delaoglou) making his album debut for the band. I may still hear his name in Lemmy's voice, but he fits well here, so much so that he and Maciwoda suddenly feel like they've always been there.

I haven't heard a Scorpions album in a long time, probably this millennium, because I drifted away around Eye II Eye in 1999 when they completed a shift into pop music. I remember their orchestral collaboration with the Berlin Philharmonic in 2000 but nothing since and it doesn't seem that I've missed much. Unbreakable got good reviews in 2004 and their back to their roots farewell release, Sting in the Tail from 2010, has its fans but the pair after that have got, shall we say, inconsistent reviews. Maybe I've reconnected with them at the right time because this feels honest and worthy from a band who are doing exactly what they used to do and loving it.

Sure, some of the songs are cheesy and they'll never be a band known for clever lyrics. "Scream for me, screamer" isn't going to win them a Nobel Prize for Literature, but it works here and a slew of tracks seriously kick ass the way the band used to way back in the day. Seventh Sun finds a cool vibe and I liked it immediately. It's a plodder but a very lively one. When I Lay My Bones to Rest is lively old school rock 'n' roll, perfect fodder for "the greatest drummer in rock 'n' roll" and the most up tempo song here.

There are quintessential songs too. Shining of Your Soul is a fantastic offbeat Scorpions track, with a neat and surprising reggae groove behind its crunchy riff. Klaus Meine's accent always soars so well on softer material but this is a rocker and a ballad all at once, something the Scorpions always did better than anyone else. And, as the album runs on, Peacemaker is a no nonsense rocker that could be spliced into any of their early eighties albums without anyone thinking it was out of place and the closer, When You Know (Where You Come From) isn't far way from the same comment, just as an epic rather than an overt rocker.

Sure, there are songs that are cheesy, like Gas in the Tank and Knock 'em Dead, and some that are just decent filler, like Hot and Cold and, well, Knock 'em Dead, but the highlights aren't restricted to the single, or even the three singles released thus far. This is a solid album that tells us that, in a career that's almost sixty years long, they still wanna rock and still know how to do it.

Wind Rose - Warfront (2022)

Country: Italy
Style: Folk/Power Metal
Rating: 8/10
Release Date: 10 Jun 2022
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Here's a surprise for me, substituting for what I'd planned to review today because, well, it wasn't up to snuff and I have no interest in being a hatchet man critic. My job at Apocalypse Later is based in discovery and this album was a discovery for me as it may be for you. Wind Rose hail from Pisa in Tuscany—yes, that Pisa—and they play power metal. This is their fifth album and the highest rated of them at Metal Archives, albeit with only one review thus far. They apparently started out with a more progressive form of power metal but gradually shifted into a more epic folk/power hybrid.

Frankly, I could also see the Viking metal label being thrown at them too, even if they're a little far south in Italy to be considered Vikings. The Mediterranean is rather different in temperature from the Baltic or the North Sea, after all. To me, this is power metal that's constantly underpinned by folk melodies and delivered in a rough but melodic singalong style by male voices that could easily belong to people wearing horned helmets, not that Vikings ever did, of course.

The key to the band's current sound may lie in the bookends to this album. It kicks off with a short two minute intro, Of War and Sorrow, that's epic and instrumental and full of folk elements. Then, fifty odd minutes later, it ends with Tomorrow Has Come, all acoustic guitars and hand drums and rough voices in folk harmonies. It underlines the observation that every track here is effectively a different take on Tomorrow Has Come, just heavied up, as indeed this one becomes around three and a half minutes in.

Sabaton surely have to be thrown out as a comparison, but with that Viking edge, as the vocals are rougher but just as melodic and singalong. Like Sabaton, they're singing about war but with more of a participatory mindset and they're doing it in in the form of shanties and folk epics. Draw a line from Alestorm to Sabaton and you'll find Wind Rose perhaps three quarters of the way over to the Swedes, having shorn the silliness and swearing but keeping the drunken singalongs.

And everything here feels like a drunken singalong, not in the sense that Francesco Cavalieri slurs his delivery, but because the setting is so inherent in the music that we can't help but imagine him singing in a oaken alehouse. In fact, he isn't just there, but standing behind an oaken trestle table with a large stein of beer in his hand and his cohorts singing along next to him. The folk aspects do underline all this too, because these songs are surely as good companions as that beer and just as inviting. When they're heavy, they're comrades in arms on the road. When they calm down, like in late sections of Army of Stone, they're warm pubs with blazing fires and buxom barmaids.

If it wasn't for that implicit welcome, the downside to this album would be that there isn't a lot of variety here. Frankly, if you like any one track here, you're going to like every one of them because they're all of a similar mindset. They don't tread exactly the same ground, though, and not one of them outstays the welcome, which is why the potential downside turns out to be one of its biggest successes.

In fact, I'll go a heck of a step beyond that. Every song is worthy on its own merits and could easily count as the track you'd want to play to catch a friend up in what this album is. I listened through a third time specifically with that in mind and it's so consistent that I simply couldn't pick one. It was always the one I was listening to at any particular moment in time, whichever one that happened to be. What's more, every time I thought maybe not this one, it would do something to enforce its place at the top of my list.

Maybe I feel reasonably safe in placing I am the Mountain just a little below the rest and it's hard to compare the closer to the rest because of two thirds of it being acoustic. So the highlight would be one of the first seven songs proper, from Army of Stone to The Battle of the Five Armies, and an acknowledgement like that means that this has to be a 8/10 with thoughts of going up to a rarely awarded but much coveted 9/10s. I've only given out two this year thus far and this is the closest I can remember of making that three, but I think the ruthless consistency of 90% of the album and a slight shift for the rest blocks that. Rating aside, grab some bottles of mead, some drinking horns and a bevy of friends and you'll have a grand old time with this. Slainte!

Lord Belial - Rapture (2022)

Country: Sweden
Style: Black Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 27 May 2022
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It's been a while since Lord Belial have released an album, mostly because they went on indefinite hiatus in 2009 when drummer Micke Backelin was suffering from severe tinnitus. After at least one gig in 2014 and an announced tour for the COVID years that I presume didn't happen, they're back for sure with this album, their ninth thus far and their first in fourteen years. Given how blistering the opening track, Legion, happens to be, I think the Swedish black metal pioneers may be a little happy about their return.

That they remain frantic for much of the album shouldn't be much of a surprise to anyone. Micke's drumming is pinpoint stuff and, for a while, it's not particularly varied, content to just hammer an incessant beat at ludicrous speed. Legion and On a Throne of Souls are powerful tracks, but really ones to get us in the mood and underline the fact Lord Belial and indeed Micke Backelin are back. I did wonder for a while if we'd hear anything else, because what might work fine for a three and a half minute opener, or indeed the first couple of songs, isn't going to work for a fifty minute album.

Rapture of Belial, which I guess is the title track, is where it starts to vary. It's very fast at points, I should point out, but it varies the tempo frequently, often getting surprisingly slow, even shifting the beat a couple of times from Micke's drums to what I presume is the sound of an anvil being hit by a large hammer. I was a little panicky before this song, but it opened up wonderfully from here, almost like the openers were a solid and reliable stem to a flower and we work upwards to find the rest of the album the vibrant petals. A predominantly black flower, of course, and one inexplicably decorated by blood spatter, but you get the point.

I realise that I've now mentioned Micke four times thus far but nobody else at all, though the first was inevitable. The others are because he's rather high in the mix and he's so incessant over those first couple of tracks that it's a little hard to focus on the rest of the band. Well, that's his brother Thomas's voice fighting for attention and it's a neatly evil black metal voice without going full-on goblin shriek. Thomas also plays guitar, as does Niclas Pepa Green, meaning that there are three of the four founder members in place, only Anders Backelin, cousin to Micke and Thomas, missing on bass. All three members pick up that slack, but I wonder why he didn't join them this time.

To be fair, they do it well, not that it's particularly noticeable in the mix. It's certainly there on the quieter moments in Belie All Gods, where it shines in comparison to the routine death growl that's suddenly a counter to Thomas's black shriek. It's there as Evil Incarnate kicks on with slow but firm intent. This one ramps up, of course, but varies its tempo throughout and is likely to be my pick for standout track. There's a fight on for that slot though and oddly, the majority of candidates are in the second half of the album, which ironically it begins.

There's a grand epic feel to this half, with slower sections rampaging onwards and faster ones that elevate the mood. It often feels like early Dark Tranquility in its sweep but with all its rough edges smoothed off and the tone translated from melodic death to black metal, through the vocals, the impenetrable guitars and the faster drum sections. There are some fantastic delicacies within the layers of sound in Lux Luciferi and the melody of Infinite Darkness and Death ends up accentuated by what sounds like a harpsichord. The intro to this one is blissful too. Alpha and Omega does a lot of these things but with an even better guitar solo. Lamentations gets seriously choral.

Yes, this second half shines. It swells with emotional weight but dances with elegance. As ruthless the opening tracks were, I much prefer the slower, more nuanced tracks of the second half and I'm hooked all over again on each repeat listen. Raw purists may worship Legion, but this album kicks off for me with Rapture of Belial and really gets going with Evil Incarnate. From that point, it's an excellent album indeed.

Post Generation - Control-Z (2022)

Country: Italy
Style: Progressive Rock
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 27 May 2022
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Control-Z or CTRL-Z is, of course, the undo button, and it's not something that Post Generation are in need of after making this music, because it's exquisite. However, it fits the concept at the heart of this concept album, which is a dystopian office that has the power to undo what it deems to be a bad feeling or bad emotion within any of its citizens, resulting in a "mass of zombified citizens". To be fair, I listened through this a few times without noticing that it was a concept album at all, with so much music to distract us from the lyrics. It's another level to appreciate, but it's not required.

Post Generation play progressive rock with a strong side of pop music, listing Porcupine Tree as an important influence, though vocalist and guitarist Matteo Bevilacqua came from heavier roots, as the bass player for Diaries of a Hero. While Bevilacqua is British and Diaries of a Hero are based in London, Post Generation are listed as being from Turin in Italy, Bevilacqua shifting across to vocals and guitar, Antonio Marincola stepping up on bass and multi-instrumentalist Carlo Peluso playing keyboards and whatever else is needed. There are two session drummers and a female vocalist on this, their second album, as well.

Initially, I found this pleasant, with fascinating details, like the shift from angry sampled voice to a delightful interplay of vocalising in the album's standout track, You're Next in Line, a section which shifts into a set of solos. It was moments like that one that made me pay deeper attention to all of the various aspects of this intricate music. What's the Worry, for instance, was initially just speech—not a sample, but a sort of carefully phrased delivery of poetry—until it switches over to singing at the halfway mark, but there's some subtle but excellent musicianship going on underneath the voice. And focusing on that ironically meant that I initially missed the concept, which is completely obvious in a song like this one, which can only exist to serve one.

In short, there's a lot going on here and that's underlined by so many of these songs sounding not at all like each other. The greatest musical shift on offer may be from frantic electric guitar-driven The Cat and the Chicken to atmospheric, jagged keyboards in White Lights and Darkest Patterns, a shift from almost hard rock to electronica. However, it's far from the only shift on this album that seems wild on paper but works well within the context of the album, which is primarily rock, but is often pop, albeit always progressive, fascinating and imaginative. This Cannot Work ramps up to a powerful finalé, then drops into the folky acoustic Raising the Bar. Nathalie kicks off with bubbling electronica but finds its way into a violin solo.

If I have a problem here, and I don't really but you might, it's that I find that I can't focus on songs for the most part, because of all these delicious moments. Once again, You're Next in Line must be the highlight, because, even though it has so many delicious moments, from the initial tinkling of piano to those later showcase shifts, it builds like a song to a neat hook of a chorus. Most songs on this album don't do that, not because they fail at the attempt but because they're not interested in that and are content to be a bigger moment in the concept album.

That means that after You're Next in Line, the next best song is Control-Z, but I don't mean track 8 but the entire fifty-seven minute album. It could be described as a collage of fascinating moments arranged in a particular order to tell a dystopian story, linked primarily by the soft voice of Matteo Bevilacqua, who occasionally passes the mike to Michaela Senetta. That's not a bad thing in itself, but it may not be what you're looking for. If you like your prog to set a single texture and run with it or if you like your prog to be commercial and hook-laden, then this is not for you. This is for fans who want many textures, not just within an album but within a song, and for those textures to stay interesting for almost an hour. Which means I need to listen to this yet again.

Destruction - Diabolical (2022)

Country: Germany
Style: Thrash Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 8 Apr 2022
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While the Kreator album I reviewed last week came out in June, this Destruction album is actually a few months old, having been released in April while I was travelling in the UK. I was always going to catch up with it, because Destruction are my favourite of the Teutonic Big Three, and it's almost appropriate that I did it this way round because anyone who didn't like the slower material on the Kreator album will absolutely not have that problem here. This is a Destruction album and it does what Destruction albums do. The catch is that, while Diabolical is the thrash album that Hate über alles mostly wasn't and it's more consistent to boot, I'm not going to rate it any higher.

The reason for that is that, while it starts off really well, with a neatly building intro and a stellar title track, it doesn't seem interested in varying the formula much at any point. Sure, there are a few tracks, like Tormented Soul or Whorefication, that slow down to a mid tempo that's still faster than the Kreator tracks that went all traditional metal, and they work well. However, that's about it and I wonder if the folk who didn't like Kreator trying new stuff on their album will be happy to discover that Destruction don't on this one or not.

To be fair, I'm enjoying this one more with each repeat listen. My first impressions were mostly to acknowledge that this was a Destruction album and it sounded exactly like any Destruction album should and that was enough for me. However, it faded as it ran on, perhaps because the best songs show up early, not just that excellent title track but also the quintessential Hope Dies Last, which is textbook Teutonic thrash, and the one between them, No Faith in Humanity. With repeat listens, the guitarwork stands out even more, because it's clear in the mix and the solos are excellent.

What's weird is that Mike Sifringer is not responsible for any of that guitarwork. While most folk think of Schmier as the focal point in Destruction, he wasn't the only founder member to stay with the band for a long time and he wasn't the one who never took a break. Remember that Schmier was fired in 1989 and remained gone for a full decade, albeit not a particularly memorable one for them. Mike Sifringer was also a founder member and he never left until 2021, apparently without a statement. That timing is really odd, given that this year marks Destruction's 40th anniversary, but maybe it was important to him in a different way.

Now, Sifringer did shift from lead to rhythm guitar a few years ago, when Damir Eskić joined, but he'd done that a couple of times in the past too, whenever they bulked up from a trio to a quartet. His replacement here is Martin Furia, who's an Argentinian based in Belgium, so I presume that's him providing the crunchy riffs behind Eskić's solos. They make a very good pairing indeed and it's odd to think of how tight they are, given that it's such a new partnership. I'd call out the fantastic midsection of Hope Dies Last on that front, as well as the entirety of Servant of the Beast, but the quality runs far beyond just those peaks. Thank you, Mike, though, for four decades of music that you've given us.

The question I have is whether such a major change to their line-up is going to spur a new era and, if so, whether that's going to be a good thing or a bad one, given that Schmier is likely to make all the key decisions going forward on his own. Their previous album was solid but unremarkable and this one is just as consistent but better, albeit not so much to warrant an 8/10 instead of a 7. These songs feel a little closer to quintessential Destruction, taking the old NWOBHM style and giving it a serious dose of speed and a little more punk attitude. The bonus cover on Born to Perish was of a Tygers of Pan Tang song and this one's of a GBH classic, City Baby Attacked by Rats.

I'm going to be interested to see what my thrasher son thinks of this. I prefer Destruction and he's more of a Kreator fan, but I have a feeling he's going to like this more than Hate über alles. I have little doubt that I'm going to come back to this one more than Kreator's new one, but I think more than Born to Perish too. Let's see if I end up bumping it up to an 8/10. The only reason I'm not right now is because not everything is up to the standards of the highlights. I think that'll keep it at an 8/10 but maybe they'll continue to grow on me. Only time will tell.

Manu Reno - NocturnA (2022)

Country: Spain
Style: Alternative
Rating: 6/10
Release Date: 22 Feb 2022
Sites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | Official Website | YouTube

I don't review everything that's submitted to me for that purpose, because not everything makes the cut and a few otherwise worthy albums just get lost in the cracks during times I'm focused on my film festival or convention and end up not writing reviews for a while. I have to say here that I wasn't sure if I should review this one, but I decided to because it kept growing on me and I firmly believe that it deserves some publicity.

Manu Reno is the name of the multi-talented musician behind this one man project and I honestly hadn't noticed that he hails from Barcelona before I ate paella tonight. Damn, I miss the insanely fresh cuisine in that city and it's been a couple of decades since I've been there, singing along with a different Manu on the jukebox in some bar. I hear more of Barcelona in that Manu's sound, that Manu being Manu Chao, than in Manu Reno's, but I'm not sure where to place it at all because his voice makes it so inherently unique.

I believe he's primarily a bass player and the bass does lead the way on many of these songs, with the first a good case in point. Eternally kicks off the album in thoroughly playful mood and it's the bass that sets that mood. He also plays every other instrument too, all of them capably, and sings for good measure, which is where the question marks come in. It took me aback immediately but I developed a taste for it under certain circumstances and it fit more and more as I repeat listened through this album.

It reminded me initially of Uli Jon Roth, a great comparison because he's a fantastic musician, just one who people tend to tune into because of his guitarwork rather than his voice. Manu Reno is an accomplished guitarist, even if he favours the bass, and a quite a few songs here reminded me of a Wishbone Ash guitar intro. That delightful intricacy is right there on When I'm Gone and The Land of the Free and Time, among others, but it's just one aspect of his sound. Hiding from the Sun is an acutely Sex Pistols-esque punk song, for example. The instrumentals, Lumina Noctem and the title track, are notably progressive. There's a recognisable Black Sabbath riff in There on the Moon, so it's clear that Reno does not restrict himself to a single genre.

What I found was that his voice fits some but not all of the genres he drifts into. Once I got used to his delivery, which is in heavily accented English that's resistant to the usual directions that voices take, I found that it worked well on up tempo rockers like Eternally, where it becomes just another instrument in the mix. It works well on the punkier material too, like Hiding from the Sun and the bonus track, Rusty Souls' Trilogy, because it's anarchic and under a different sort of control. Yet, a softer ballad like Breakable feels just the wrong sort of material for him.

I don't want to concentrate on Reno's voice because there's so much else to what he does, as both the instrumentals ably highlight, Lumina Noctem being especially evocative, but it's hard to see it as anything but the focus. Put simply, if you don't dig his voice, you're going to hate this album, no doubt. On the other hand, if it gets a grip on you, even if it's to figure out what he's actually doing with it, you may well end up loving this. It seems fair to throw out Shane McGowan of the Pogues or Eugene Hütz of Gogol Bordello as two comparisons and both those highly talented gentlemen also have instantly recognisable but highly unorthodox voices that don't work for every style.

I actually played a couple of these songs to my son to see what he might think. His initial call was a combination of the deliberate delivery of Billy Idol and the mumbling of Dave Mustaine, which is a weird take for me but I guess I can see it. Reno certainly delivers with relish. His other suggestion was that the voice reminded him of a punk singer who comes on right before the headliners at an otherwise metal gig, having sunk a few beers before getting on stage. I definitely hear that.

Given that I like some of these songs a lot more than others, because of how those vocals fit these many styles, I think I have to go with a 6/10. If you hate that voice, you should shed a few points off that score to the degree that you shouldn't even bother. However, if you find it fascinating, add an extra point on, because it'll draw you in to the point where you'll eventually notice the other cool things he's doing instrumentally and the album will grow on you. So thanks, Manu, for sending me this one for review. I didn't like everything on it but I liked some of it a lot and I always appreciate different approaches. All the best!

And, before I go, I should mention that this is far from Manu's first album. I'm seeing seven on his Bandcamp page and you can pick up the whole lot for only twenty-five euros right now. I'm really intrigued to see what else is in his musical toolbox, even though very few of the songs seem to be sung in Spanish. Given how Manu's accent manifests in English, I really wonder what he sounds like in what I presume is his native language.

Graham Bonnet Band - Day Out in Nowhere (2022)

Country: UK
Style: Hard Rock
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 13 May 2022
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Having discovered Graham Bonnet at the same time as most rock fans, through Rainbow's Down to Earth album, which I actually heard before their predecessors with Ronnie James Dio, I have to confess surprise to discover that he had a number five hit in 1968 with the Marbles. Given that it's now fifty-four years later and he's putting out his third Graham Bonnet Band album at the age of seventy-four but sounding as strong as ever, the excellent opener about waking up and seeing an older version of yourself in the mirror kind of makes sense. Maybe It's Just a Frickin' Song is about getting old too, instead of the more obvious subject of writer's block.

Imposter is a strong opener with Bonnet's voice as strong as ever, though I have to say he doesn't vary his trademark emphasis almost at all here. He's either on and delivering at full volume or he wandered off somewhere so guitarist Conrado Pesinato can strut his stuff for a little while, with a fast shred technique. There's not a lot of nuance here until we get to the rather out of place Suzy that wraps up the album with a dose of orchestral musical theatre. I'm not a particular fan of that style anyway but this does nothing to convert me.

I appreciate the more traditional rock material more, even though some of it took a while to reach me and some of it is frankly just there, capable but hardly spectacular. After Imposter, Brave New World and The Sky is Alive stand out as highlights. The former is a little more subtle than Imposter and features a very nice guitar solo, while the latter trawls in the Rainbow textures through both keyboards and guitar that I was hoping might show up somewhere. I have zero clue what it's about but the former is about a gentleman having horizons broadened by a rubber fetishist girlfriend.

It has to be said that the lyrics here captured me, even though they're hardly poetry. There isn't a theme, though there are a couple of songs about getting old and a few more about bizarre things happening. At least I think that's what The Sky is Alive is about because, if it's preaching about an awareness of environmental catastrophe, it's pretty obscure. Certainly the title track is about an incident in Russia where Bonnet apparently drove through the Twilight Zone. Quite a few focus on sexuality, but in completely different ways, David's Mom (or Brave New World) and Uncle John not alike in any other way than sexual urge.

Musically, it's relatively unsurprising. Uncle John thinks about power metal early but chooses not to actually go there. Pesinato occasionally displays a willingness to go full on Malmsteen shred but he never really does. This isn't early Alcatrazz. While the occasional solo feels like it's there just to insert a solo, he does a good job and so does everyone else involved, even if that may just be Beth-Ami Heavenstone on bass because the drums are played by a succession of guests and I don't think keyboardest Alessandro Bertoni is actually in the band.

If you've followed Bonnet's career, there's a bit of everything he's done here, that one song with a Rainbow feel accompanied by heavier songs that remind a bit of Alcatrazz and lighter, commercial ones that approach Forcefield. There's a neat drop into piano late in the title track that works as a tie to the lyrics and as a musical device. The heaviest the album gets is Jester, featuring the guitar of Jeff Loomis of Sanctuary, Nevermore and Arch Enemy—though he's also in Alcatrazz nowadays—and Kyle Hughes of Bumblefoot.

And so, while some of these songs wouldn't be missed if they just vanished off future versions, this is another solid and reliable effort from the ever-consistent Graham Bonnet and his current band.