The Answer - Solas (Album review)

The Answer - Solas

10.28.16

Album review

The Answer latest studio release was a remarkable achievement, ditching the produced sound of New Horizon in favor of more stripped down sonics, a fantastic showcase for the dominating hard blues songs. Rightfully hailed (by me, at least) as their best album so far, Raise A Little Hell featured an all-killer no-filler track listing: Red, Long Live The Renegades, the title track, Aristocrat, Whiplash all showed the band at their peak. Having witnessed them live during the subsequent tour, my impression was confirmed by an eye and ear testimony: albeit a little short, their Paris set was truly energetic.

In fact, the band was slowly descending through dark days. While truly appreciated and supported by the classic rock loving crowd, mainstream success was escaping them and the initial exposure gained by their knighting by peers Jimmy Page, Paul Rodgers and AC/DC whom their opened for back in 2009, was fading away. The band’s growing trauma was fueled by personal issues, notably when singer Cormac Neeson nearly lost his young son to a serious illness.

“Do we just make another rock record and go through the motions?’ No one was excited by that. Everybody was burnt-out by that point. It felt like we’d been in a van, just looking at each other, for ten years. We were thinking, ‘How do we move this on?’ And we didn’t have the answer”.

 

The Answer’s new album, SOLAS, appears as the direct product of these dark days, an aural therapy for a band desperately searching for light. Interestingly, we’re not in St Anger territory here. Our Irish rockers opt for a much produced sound, with vastly layered sonic landscapes rather than a stripped down record. This production choice does wonders on Beautiful World or the title track. The usual Zeppelin comparison comes to mind, and sounds definitely well deserved. One rightfully wonders how this sound will translate in live performances.

“Cormac allows himself to be vulnerable. As a frontman, that’s very hard to do, because you’re meant to be the strong guy at the front who has no weakness. All my favourite lyricists, that’s what they do. They bare their souls, for better or worse.”

Lyrics reveal the difficult context in which the album was composed and recorded. This is not your foot-stomping joyful rock album, folks. There’s a very moody, grim and, let’s say it, sad and depressing atmosphere on SOLAS. The title track quasi shamanic chants set the tone masterfully, but that’s truly the lyrics that convey this impression. “What the light don’t fill, the darkness kills”.

Regarding that idea, Tunnel is perhaps exhibit #1:”Every day, we get further down the tunnel/Every day, it’s so hard to see/Maybe life shouldn’t be such a struggle/ Every day, it’s so hard…”

Interestingly, even the most “uplifting” tracks fail to deviate much from this mood: the reworking of Battlecry (now in two words), Real Life Dreamers and Untrue Colors all sound as if there’s an unescapable threat just behind your back. In a logical kind of way, these tracks are also the less convincing, with Untrue Colors being pretty awful. I’m not very fond of the reworked Battle Cry either: the added Gaelic (?) chants are a bit too much, and I loved the rhythm of the original better. The band thought otherwise –the original version wasn’t finished and logically was relegated as a “digital b-side”.

Thankfully, the high points by far overtake the low ones. A track of note is the acoustic driven In This Land which has really interesting dynamics and evokes countryside and highlands horizons, thanks to its intricate guitar melodies and its catchy chorus. This track could be a moderately successful folk rock single, if they deem it worthy of receiving a music video.

                All in all, SOLAS is a great album. It’s weird to me to think that it should be seen as a comeback album considering that I see Raise A Little Hell as their best by far. It’s nearly impossible to rank among their output because it showcases a vastly different sound. Searching for the light among the darkness, who knows which path our Irish rockers will follow next? The Answer lies ahead.

Bonus tracks:

As usual, The Answer covers all bases and tries to please them all by releasing the album in various configurations, most of them offering additional content.

As far as I know, the Pledgemusic exclusive CD-version is the most complete, with three bonus tracks (the Japanese release features the same three tracks).

The acoustic version of In This Land doesn’t add much to the standard version. It’s simply a remixing of the same take in a stripped down fashion. If The Answer have indeed a “tradition” of releasing acoustic versions of their songs, this rendition is pretty disappointing.

The demo of Light In Darkness (do you see a lyrical pattern here?) is a far more interesting track. I would have loved to have this on the track listing instead of Untrue Colors, for instance.

The final track is a great cover of Pink Floyd’s Money. Initially, I thought it would be a recording of their live performance of the song at Abbey Road but it’s in fact a really cool studio performance. The live version is superior, but this one is great to have. It does detract a bit from the flow and the atmosphere, so it’s nice that it was put at the end of the album.

 

Ace Frehley - Origins vol. 1 (Album review)

                

 Ah, the « cover album syndrome ». A household name making a cover album is often seen as either a cash grab, a desperate –and paradoxal- attempt to stay relevant by releasing a product without much songwriting effort.

In the classic rock sphere, most recent attempts have been a kind of a mixed bag. The self-titled release of the super group “Hollywood Vampires” was mostly composed of cover songs, from Paul McCartney to Led Zeppelin. The album featured three rather bland original compositions which did not manage to convince me that all the fuss about this band was actually justified. The cover exercise in itself wasn’t even remotely that interesting, because the whole bunch of the album was made of very famous songs: Whole Lotta Love is probably Led Zeppelin’s most known song, and My Generation is pretty recognizable. And Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall isn’t exactly unknown, either.

On the other side of the spectrum, we find the poorly named Comeblack album by the Scorpions. This cover album was partly composed of bad cover songs of bands that inspired the German rocker (the Kinks, T. Rex, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles to name a few). The other half of the album was composed of songs where the band was covering their own past hits from the 80s and early 90s. The problem was that the arrangements were for the most part, exactly the same as their original versions with a slicker –and more compressed-, modern sound. I don’t know about you, but I fail to see the point in preferring a slicker but worse sounding version of Still Loving You or Rock You Like a Hurricane, when the originals sound perfect in all their 80s glory? And god, Klaus does sound fucking old on No One Like You…

People were intrigued when Ace Frehley of KISS fame announced his cover album, Origins vol. 1. Thankfully, I find it better than the two examples I just described.

Most of the album is made of cover songs from bands that inspired Ace. For the most part, the performances range from honest to pretty good, as one could expect. While he’s merely a decent singer, Ace really hasn’t lost his guitar chops!

 What bothers me is the production: songs like Spanish Castle Magic and Bring it On Home don’t need a polished sound, but they actually cry for a very dirty sound. The very slick drum sound and compressed guitars work well on songs like Wild Thing, even if I find the song itself boring.

Ace’s cover of Emerald by Thin Lizzy is really good. That is, until he exchanges solos with Slash, who guests on the track. I was very disappointed because they sound like they’re just noodling, without listening to each other and trying to make a solo which fits the song. Magic Carpet Ride is cool, and White Room is pretty good too.

But the real shining star of Ace’s galaxy of songs is Fire and Water, which features no one else that KISS’ Paul Stanley on lead vocals. Now that was unexpected considering the constant bickering that has become the norm between current and former members of KISS. And do you know what was even more unexpected? Paul actually sounds great! He switches to a way lower register than usual, and it suits him very well.

While we’re talking about KISS, the attentive reader sure can’t help but witness that there are lots of KISS covers on this album. For the most part, these are Ace’s songs and here, the slick sound really works. Parasite especially shines, and Cold Gin does too while featuring Ace on lead vocals instead of Gene Simmons on the original version. Not the best but perhaps the most intriguing is  the presence of Rock N’ Roll Hell, a song from the 1982 album Creatures of the Night, which featured Ace on its cover even if the Spaceman didn’t record or write a single note for it. Ace’s rendition, where he features on lead vocals once again instead of Gene, is pretty good. All in all, Ace’s take on covering KISS songs is far more convincing than the awful cover album Jingoku Retsuden, where the current KISS line up re-recorded KISS Klassics.

Far from being a great album, and while it doesn’t reach the heights of Ace’s versions of 2000 Man or New York Groove, Origins vol. 1 is a fun listen. Now I’ll be quite interested in knowing the tracklist for its supposed sequel…

Queen - A Night At the Odeon

Queen – A Night At The Odeon

(Released november 20^th 2015)

The performance:

On Christmas Eve 1975, Queen arguably ended its A Night At The Opera Tour in a bang. They were scheduled to play a sold out show at the famous Hammersmith Odeon in London. Finally finding some commercial success with their breakthrough single Seven Seas Of Rhye, and even more so with their third album Sheer Hear Attack, they were entering their golden era, both in terms of artistic creativity and of public recognition. After the release of A Night At The Opera, jokingly titled after a Marx Brother's movie, the band went nearly immediatly on tour. Their tight schedule didn't allow them to record a performance to be broadcasted on the BBC : therefore, they deciced to record a mimed performance of Bohemian Rhapsody, to ensure sufficient promotion while they were touring. This led to what people like to describe as the first ever music video -an assumption that is, to be honest, quite debatable.

They decided to take advantage of the fact that the Odeon show was the last stop from the tour to broadcast it live on the BBC. The pressure was huge on their shoulders, as it was to be their first ever live performance on TV, not to mention the show was taking place at home, in London.

Brian May and Roger Taylor confessed that they were increasingly pressured by the event as the hour was coming. The beginning of the show was apparently delayed for a couple of minutes, as the camera crew from the BBC was having technical difficulties. But once the starting signal was given to them, the band stormed on the stage with a blistering rendition of Now I'm Here. I must confess, I was never a fan of the song. I discovered it with Live At Wembley '86, and rocky-voice moustache and yellow jacket Freddie honestly didn't do the song justice. The studio version always seemed a bit “lightweight” for me, and I was never fond of the lyrics. But I have to admit that this particular rendition is really great, and it works pretty well as an opener.

The band then takes us “to the battlefield”, with “Ogre Battle”. Here, there's no doubt about the heaviness of this great cut from their second album. This story telling of a song features some nice guitar playing from Brian and really, really good drumming rom the oh -so -underrated Roger Taylor.

We stay on Queen II territory with the next song, but things slow down a bit. “White Queen (As It Began)”, the strongest song from the first side of the album was written by Brian May about a girl he fell in love with, but never managed to gather the courage to talk to. This song has always been one of my favorites from the album, and this particular rendition is strong, if not as good as the Rainbow performances. I find myself in disagreement with lots of Queen fans who don't really like the guitar solo on the studio version, and greatly prefer the extended playing from the live versions. I think the original solo contributes greatly the the overall atmosphere of the song, but I have to say that I really love the delicate piano accents Freddie adds on our Odeon performance.

Then we get into the amazing and sadly soon to be abandoned “piano medley” starting with the first half of “Bohemian Rhapsody”, up to the first guitar solo. This choice was first motivated by the impossibility for them to replicate the famous trial opera segment with its dozens or mutlitracked vocal harmonies. They tried to play it live a few times -it obviouly couldn't do the song justice. Before famously leaving the stage to return after the tape playing this part to do the hard rock, uptempo section; they decided to integrate the song into a medley. And boy doe it work well, with a very fluent transition to their most successful single to date, “Killer Queen” (Bohemian Rhapsody would reach the top of the charts three days after the Odeon show). This very simple, yet finely crated songs is without of doubt one of their very best, and this particular rendition is absolutely flawless. After an extended guitar solo, they break into a short snippet from “The March Of The Black Queen”, before returning to the ending section of “Bohemian Rhapsody”.

The medley seemingly stops, but they play a brief intrumental snippet of “Bring Back That Leroy Brown”, with tasty ukelele licks from Brian which grants a satisfactory roar from an amused audience.

In a way, this serves as a perfect introduction for a very guitar oriented part of the show, with the opening song off Sheer Heart Attack, “Brighton Rock”, and its linked guitar solo.

We're very far from the boring 10 minutes delay wankfest from Live At Wembley. Here the effect works well, and the solo is perfectly timed, clocking in at 6 minutes. The next song, Son And Daughter, keeps on with the heaviness.

We go back in time for the following songs. "Keep Yourself Alive" was the opening song from their eponymous first album. While it was certainly a bad choice for a single, it's still a pretty good song. But it clearly in the shadow of "Liar", which received moderate success in America when the album was released. The performance here is mostly strong, even if, truth to be told, the ending is a bit of a mess. But this amazing riff excuses nearly everything.

The band concludes the main part of the show leaving its audience “In The Lap Of The Gods (Revisited)”. It worked really well as the ending of a Queen show up to News Of The World -as Roger Taylor would put it, with its great singalong sections, it was “Champions before Champions”.

They come back on stage with a rock n' roll medley featuring "Big Spender/Jailhouse Rock/Stupid Cupid/Be Bop A Lula". I was very surprised to see so many dislike for this part of the show. I think the band is obviously having fun and plays very well, so I really love it. But I can understand the idea that they could've played one or two of their own songs instead. "Seven Seas Of Rhye" and the blues b-side "See What A Fool I've Been" nicely conclude the show with an uptempo feeling, before the audience sings along to the band's rendition of "God Save The Queen".

The release:

Considering that this show was professionnaly recorded and broadcasted on TV, it's no surprise that it has always been the most bootlegged Queen concert ever. An official release was long overdue, but most fans know this show really well and it didn't receive as much applause as the Rainbow shows when it was announced. But it's nice that Queen prod seem to be moving away from the idea that only moustache Freddie Queen is intersting.

A complete restoration was finished in 2009, with a remixing of the whole concert. This version was to be released that year, but the date was indeinitely postponed without explanation, in classic Queen Productions style. An abridged version was broadcasted on a Bristish TV channel, and a longer one on Japanese television.

When the band moved to Island Records, their whole studio back catalogue was remastered and expanded to “celebrate” their 40^th anniversary in 2011. Every album received a bonus EP featuring remixes, B-sides, live versions and so on. Two Odeon tracks surface on this reissue campaign, namely White Queen on Queen II, and Now I'm Here on Sheer Heart Attack. Comparing these 2011 versions to the 2015 release shows no difference in terms of mixing, and the only variations are due to the mastering stage; We can reasonably suppose that the whole mixing process was completely done in 2011. That said, there are instances of mixing differences between the 2011/2015 release and the 2009 broadcast, so there has been additional processing and editing (with noticeable and unnecessary autotuning) between 2009 and probably 2011. The liner notes, as usual with Queen Productions, are of no help.

The 2015 release features both a video and an audio version of the concert. The video version is not complete, because the camera crew from the BBC packed their equipment after the rock n'roll medley. Video for Seven Seas of Rhye and See What A Fool I've Been simply doesn't exist, but audio thankfully does. The concert was videotaped, and not filmed, which means the quality is bottlenecked by the original resolution it was shot in; That's what explains the “SD Blu Ray” mention on the packaging: the video is upscaled to 1080p (full HD resolution), in its original 4:3 aspect ratio. Considering the limitations of the source, we simply can't attain the same level of visual clarity as Queen Rock Montreal and Hungarian Rhapsody; These show were filmed, which means the negatives can be scanned at higher resolutions to bring out more details and to clean up tears and dust. It's probably fair to consider that the show looks as good as it ever will, and it looks okay. Nothing stellar, but nothing to be ashamed of.

The sound quality is more subject to debate. I don't like the overall mix. Poor John Deacon is totally buried in a mix and often impossible to hear. It's quite funny (or sad) to hear Brian and Roger talking about how locked the drums and the bass were during Queen shows, when this release features a bass player totally muted by a clearly overmixed bass drum. Seriously, has anyone at Queen prod listened to the show and couldn't hear how ridiculously LOUD this bass drum is?

The mastering is compressed, but not as much as the Rainbow shows. And as you can see on the waveforms here, there's thankfully no instances of audible clipping. I guess that's sadly the best one can hope for in 2015.

The bonus material is a total disappointment; Why didn't they release a 2 disc version of it with the full show on the first one, and the complete rehearsals on the second? Instead, we have to buy the most expensive “Super Deluxe Edition” (God does that name sounds dumb) only to get one single rehearsal track, “Now I'm Here”, stupidly pressed on a gimmicky 7” record.

The bonus footage from Japan 75 looks like ****. It sounds a bit better than it looks, but it isn't saying much; The looking back at the Odeon “documentary”, which is simply an interview with Brian and Roger, is absolutely pointless. They keep on rehashing the same stories we heard thousand of times and offer nothing of interest.

A word to conlude on the cover. I didn't know how to react when it was unveiled. I thought it was a temporary placeholder. I would've prefered it to be joke. It's absolutely awful ,something even a 4 year old without hands and a functioning brain would be ashamed of. Bu then again, we have to go back to Queen On Fire (2005) to get a decent cover; Bypassing the fact that, once again, they're marketing Queen as a one man band; it is amazingly bad and amateurish. Cross that, even amateurs do better than them: 

 

Long story short, get the release, throw away the cover ;-)

H.E.A.T - Live In London (2014) Album Review

H.E.A.T – Live In London (2014)

Amazingly revitalized after the departures of their original singer Kenny Leckremo and of one of their guitarists Dave Dalone, and the arrival of Erik Grönwall, swedish lightning-charged melodic hard rock band H.E.A.T has for the past three years clearly established themselves as one of the truly best live acts on the rock scene.

I can testified, having witnessed their energy and enthusiam on 9^th december 2014, live at La Flèche d'Or, here in Paris. Performing on my birthday, I must say that they went far beyond my expectations as they blew the roof off that night. A crazy singer, a guitarist in top form, and a rythm section locking perfectly with the layers of keyboards, they gave us a great show. My only minor complaint would be about the fact that the venue was about ½, maybe ¾ full that night, and I fear that the band may not be touring France in the near future. But it seems that they went with better luck elsewhere in Europe, and especially overseas.

So it probably seemed logical for the band to record their first ever live album in London, to commemorate their may 16^th 2014 show at The Garage and their first-ever headlining tour.

The album setlist is as follows :

1. Point Of No Return
2. A Shot At Redemption
3. Better Off Alone
4. 1000 Miles
5. It's All About Tonight
6. Inferno
7. The Wreckoning / Tearing Down The Walls
8. Mannequin Show
9. Late Night Lady
10. In And Out Of Trouble
11. Downtown
12. Enemy In Me
13. Emergency
14. Breaking The Silence
15. Living On The Run

(TOTAL RUNNING TIME : 67min 22 sec.)

A quick look on the actual seltist of the concert on setlsit.fm reveals a few differences. In fact, while the liner notes make no mention of it, the band's press release mentions that the album was « Mainly recorded at The Garage in London on May 16, 2014 ». The commercially released album therefore seems to be a compilation of a few performances where the London show represents the biggest portion. That's how I understand the « additional recordings made in Manchester » mentioned in the liner notes, but they could also refer to additional studio overdubs. We sadly lose the cool appearance of Dragonforce's lead guitarist Herman Li on the “In And Out Of Trouble” London performance; there's a picture of him playing with the band inside the CD booklet.

The two latest albums, 2014's « Tearing Down The Walls » and 2012's « Adress The Nation » get the lion's share of the album setlsit, with respectively 7 and 6 songs. Their eponymous first studio album is represented with only one song ; nothing from Freddom Rock, the second album. « 1000 Miles », a non-album, single-only track, completes the setlist.

The band played around with the set list during the tour, so there had to be a selection among the performed tracks. I personnally regret that they didn't include live versions of « Beg Beg Beg » with their Highway Star snippet (which appears to be a Japan-Exclusive track) and the showstopping « All The Nights » on which Erik Grönwall was in top form when I saw them in Paris. But apart from these inor complaints, the chosen running order is quite tastefully done, and the whole album flows well, and is really representative of the energy showcased during a H.E.A.T live show. The focus is clearly on the explosiveness of it, thanks to charismatic lead singer Erik Grönwall especially.

The crucial point of a live album, apart from the quality of the songs and of the performances, is the sound. The high standards of performances held by the band are undisputable : they are all great, great musicians are truly love playing their music, which translates flowlessely on stage. So, what about the mix ? The album was mixed by Grammy award winning producer Tobias Lindell, who obviously knows his job. Lots of big sounding reverb on this record (the drum sound really HUGE, and to be honest, vastly different from how they do actually live). There's -sadly maybe- a few very obvious occurrences of touch-ups and overdubs on the album, mostly on backing vocals and lead vocals. They're all pretty good singers, but the performances here are a bit TOO flawless. Clearly not the first live album to do it, and probably not the last one. The only thing very jarring are the crowd noise which is mixed to an honestly ridiculous level. After a quick googling, I learned that this venue has an approximate capacity of 600 : judging from the sound of the album, you'd think the band played in front of at least ten times more. Sometimes the audience reactions are so over-the-top you'd think the band was actually playing a headlining show at Donington Park. Listen to the transition between « The Wreckoning » and « Tearing Down The Walls ». There's no way a 600-ish crowd, as pumped up as it may be during a show, could make so much noise.

Unsurprisingly, the mastering is quite awful, lots of compression on the record. This added to the very warm sound and big sounding mix makes the album quite difficult to listen to on headphones. But it sounds better on

Apart from the usual war horses (namely AC/DC, Muse, Coldplay...),fewer and fewer bands release live albums, and even though this one has shortcomings, I'm glad they put it out. This is a perfect complement to their studio outputs, and a truly killer, great-sounding live album.

My Pick : Downtown – In And Out of Trouble – Breaking The Silence

Buy the album on the band's official website.

AC/DC - Rock Or Bust (2014) Album Review

 Le plus mauvais service que l'on peut rendre au nouvel album d'un groupe mythique est d'avoir des attentes disproportionnées. Il est simplement impossible, pour un groupe de rock avec plusieurs dizaines d'années de carrière derrière lui, et d'autant plus lorsqu'elles ont été couronnées de succès, de manifester la même fougue créatrice que lors de ses plus anciens albums. Je ne prêche pas ici le grand classique "c'était mieux avant"  au contraire, je considère cet état de fait comme un prérequis absolument nécessaire pour pouvoir apprécier à sa juste valeur tout opus récent des grands dinosaures du monde de la musique.

Tout désireux d'une re-formation qu'ils peuvent être, les fans de Led Zeppelin pensent-ils vraiment que Jimmy Page, dont les récentes prestations montrent une pratique de l'instrument plus que douteux, ou que Robert Plant, vieux lion dont le rugissement n'est plus le même qu'en 1979, et encore moins qu'en 1971; sont capables de pondre un album à la hauteur de Led Zeppelin II ou de Physical Graffiti ?Et d'ailleurs, en auraient-ils envie? Que reste-il à prouver à de tels groupes? Certainement rien. l'incroyable concert de 2007 à l'O2 Arena était une bénédiction éphémère, un miracle, désormais évanoui.

Je ne demandais pas à AC/DC d'enregistrer un Back In Black "II", ou, mieux encore, le fils spirituel de Powerage. C'est impossible, et d'ailleurs, je ne sais pas si j'arriverais à prendre au sérieux des millionnaires chanter Ain't No Fun ou Down Payement Blues.

Il ne faut d'ailleurs pas oublier qu'AC/DC peine encore à revenir de très loin. A la tragédie, conclusive pour les uns, fondatrice pour les autres, de la disparition de Bon Scott en février 1980 alors que le groupe était sur la voie de la domination sans partage de la scène rock mondiale, s'ajoutent d'autres malheurs. Malheurs qui sont peut-être d'ailleurs encore plus terribles quand on connaît l'histoire du groupe depuis la disparition de Scott. Il y a quelques semaines, le groupe officialise les rumeurs plus qu'inquiétantes. Malcolm Young est out. Man Down, comme l'a dit le chanteur Brian Johnson. Le guitariste rythmique, atteint de démence, doit être hospitalisé. Lui, l'homme du riff de Back In Black. L'homme qui envoie bouler Nikki Sixx qui fout le bordel backstage. L'esprit silencieux d'AC/DC qui vire Phil Rudd en 1983 pour excès de drogue. Angus Young, son frère, n'a de cesse de le répéter: "Malcolm is the Brain. AC/DC is his band". Comme lors de la tournée Blow Up Your Video, mais cette fois, de manière définitive, c'est son neveu, Stevie Young, qui prend en charge la guitare rythmique. Il jouera en tournée comme sur l'album.

D'ailleurs, s'il y en a un qui a failli ne pas jouer sur l'album, c'est bien le batteur Phil Rudd. Quasiment remplacé au pied levé par le producteur Brendan o'Brien , c'est avec presque deux semaines de retard que Rudd arrive à Vancouver pour jouer ses parties de batterie. On n'était déjà pas rassuré à la vue d'un Phil Rudd totalement camé certainement très fatigué par les interviews pour la promotion de son album solo, il y a quelques mois : ses récents déboires judiciaires continuent d'attiser les braises -ou risquent d'éteindre la flamme pour toujours. Le groupe a d'ailleurs rappelé qu'il n'était pas certain que Phil soit de la tournée, il n'est même pas présent dans les deux clips promotionnels pour l'album. Après le cerveau, AC/DC a peut-être perdu son groove. Pour toujours. 

AC/DC a une longue tradition d'excellents premiers morceaux d'albums. Difficile de faire mieux que Thunderstruck,  Highway To Hell ou encore Rock N'Roll Train en matière d'opening. Rock Or Bust, le morceau titre, n'a pas vraiment de quoi rougir. Riff très simple mais très mordant, batterie bien punchy, on est en terrain connu dès le début. La production impressionne dès les premières secondes: la batterie en particulier, sonne diablement bien. Les habitués de la musique du groupe remarqueront que la guitare rythmique est bien plus haut dans le mix que d'habitude. Et que dire de Brian Johnson: 70 balais, moins brailleur qu'à l'accoutumée il...chante presque sur ce morceau, déclamant des paroles qui résonnent avec encore plus de force compte tenu de la situation compliquée du groupe. 

Objet malheureux d'un contrat avec la MLB, le second titre Play Ball est lui aussi un single tout désigné. Fait rare chez une machine à riff telle qu'AC/DC, je trouve la mélodie des couplets plus accrocheuse que celle des refrains,où c'est vraiment Brian Johnson qui se taille la part du lion. Joli mur de guitares lors des accords de fin de refrain/pré-couplet. Mention spéciale au clip le plus (in)volontairement ridicule de l'Histoire.

Troisième morceau, Anything Goes...euh non, attendez, Rock the Blues Away. Les mélodies vocales sont pratiquement identiques : faites l'expérience chez vous (#interactivité), chantez les paroles de l'une en écoutant l'autre, ça se cale bien sans trop de difficulté. Bon, on passe.

Joli petit riff pour ouvrir le quatrième morceau, Miss Adventure. Gros chœurs bien virils de Cliff Williams et Stevie -parce que oui, on peut être viril en chantant "La La La La", c'est une révélation pour moi aussi. Petits overdubs de percussions assez surprenants avant le solo, qui parachèvent une partie de batterie au son monstrueux.

Dogs of War s'ouvre sur des notes de guitare qui m'ont de suite fait penser au break du morceau Rocket de Def Leppard. La basse de Cliff marque la cadence, tandis qu'Angus martèle le titre du morceau. Puis place à ce riff, le riff de l'album, syncopé, venimeux. Et en plus le solo sonne bien. Je serais très surpris que ce morceau ne soit pas présent dans la setlist de la future tournée.

Joli groove sur Got Some Rock N'Roll Thunder un petit peu gâché selon moi par ce riff bras dessus-bras dessous, façon fête de la bière. Encore une intéressante expérimentation par le biais des overdubs de percussions. Oh, c'est quand même assez entraînant, et puis Cliff a l'occasion de jouer des notes différentes au sein d'un même morceau ! Le tout sonne très Stiff Upper Lip.

Hard Times montre bien à quel point le son Phil Rudd est essentiel sur un album d'AC/DC. Rien de technique dans cette piste -même le Lars Ulrich de 2014 pourrait la jouer, si on lui enlève son horrible double pédale- et pourtant seul Phil la joue exactement de cette façon. Le morceau en lui-même est efficace mais assez oubliable. A nouveau, de grosses réminiscences de Stiff Upper Lip.

Baptism By Fire est un peu ma grosse déception de l'album. Parmi tous les titres inscrits au dos de l'album, c'est celui qui me semblait le plus prometteur. En fait, la chanson n'a rien de transcendant : en particulier, la diction sur le refrain est très artificielle et forcée.

Pas de problème sur ce point avec Rock the House, le refrain est on ne peut plus fédérateur; le riff est une base solide de quelques notes sur laquelle Angus joue un solo qui s'étend sur plus d'un tiers du morceau. Plutôt un bon titre.

Quelques phrases en registre bas au début de Sweet Candy continuent de m'abasourdir à propos de la condition vocale de Brian Johnson. Le morceau constitue par ailleurs pour moi le point culminant de la seconde partie de l'album.Le riff syncopé avant le solo est jouissif.

Drôle de son de snare au début d'Emission Control, même si ça se calme par la suite. Là, c'est l'album Black Ice qui est rappelé à notre bon souvenir, même si le riff est plus heavy que n'importe lequel issu de l'album de 2008.

Je pense que les meilleurs morceaux de Black Ice étaient meilleurs que les meilleurs de Rock Or Bust. Cependant, le tactique de préférer des morceaux moins nombreux (11 contre 15) et plus courts rend l'écoute  de ce nouvel opus  plus agréable. Où situer ainsi ce qui  est certainement le dernier album d'AC/DC au sein de la discographie du groupe? Impossible certes de le faire lutter face aux idoles Back In Black, Powerage ou même For Those About To Rock. Cela dit, il est pour moi un album clairement meilleur que Blow Up Your Video, Stiff Upper Lip et The Razor's Edge. A l'image de ce qu'a pu faire Van Halen avec A Different Kind Of Truth, à savoir revenir à d'anciennes démos plutôt que d'enregistrer de nouveaux morceaux, l'album est une synthèse plutôt bonne des précédents opus. Le fait que ce se soit fait par obligation plus que par choix n'est ps à oublier, tant la force créatrice de Malcolm Young était un élément clef du groupe. Mais AC/DC peut clore sa carrière studio avec Rock Or Bust. Je suis certain que Malcolm approuverait.

(MAJ 29/11 2014) Apparemment, une version 24 bit/96 kHz est disponible en pré-commande sur Qobuz, ainsi qu'une version masterisée pour iTunes. J'ignore dans quelle mesure ces deux versions diffèrent au niveau du mastering par rapport au CD, qui est la version sur laquelle je me suis basé pour la chronique. Je vais sûrement me procurer la version en haute-résolution, et j'attendrai d'avoir des retours pour vous parler de la version MFiT. Je vous tiens au courant!

H.E.A.T - Tearing Down the Walls (2014) album review

Heralded with the title of Europe’s most talented successors, H.E.A.T is probably one of the best hard rock bands of this millennium. Deeply rooted in a classical 80s hair metal imagery, their heavy-on-keyboards formula has revealed a deep sense of melody, ever since their 2008 self-titled debut. For any other band, I would cringe and call it cheesy nut here, it’s part of this band’s appeal. I discovered them through their 2010 hit (no pun intended), Everybody Wants to Be Someone, from their second album Freedom Rock. Therefore, I would lie if I told you that there’s too much keyboards in their songs.

Between their second and third releases, H.E.A.T had to face their first line-up change : singer Kenny Leckremo, whose voice was undoubtedly one of the band’s main appeals, left. He  was officially replaced on 21 August 2010 by Erik Grönwall, winner of the 2009 edition of the Swedish Idol television contest. I must say, I had a bad feeling about such a choice, being such a fierce despiser of the remaining member of Queen embarrassing associating themselves with American Idol’s Adam Lambert. Weel, I digress, and I was wrong about H.E.A.T : 2012’s Address the Nation proved me that this singer was much more than a pretty face. His piercing clean voice hovers the best songs of the band’s career. 

So now, in 2014, comes the release of our Swedish rockers’ fourth album, Tearing Down the Walls. Is it the second release of H.E.A.T. mark II? Nope, there’s one more line-up change to notice, with the departure of guitarist Dave Dalone. But whatever reasons were behind this departure, the music itself doesn’t suffer from it.

The moody introduction of Point of No Return was surprising during my first listen but I must say that it showcases perfectly the interplay between guitarist Eric Rivers and keyboardist Jona Tee. And then BOOM – drums come crashing (see what I did here?) against your speakers, leading a foot-stomping, head-banging track.

The first song stresses other qualities that any listener will witness on the whole album: first, amazingly mixed drums. How can you not like Crash’s drum sound, seriously? The band also benefits from having a very, very talented guitarist. Now facing the task alone, I must say that it really impresses me : great riffs, nice solos without too much pointless wankery : H.E.A.T continues to dodge the dangers that killed hard rock music in the early 90s.

The album is full of great songs : Mannequin Show, with its disarticulated, gllomy melody, is my absolute personal favorite. It also showcases how this band knows how to produce catchy choruses, as does Point of No Return.  

 

But the thing that shines the most, thanks to its consistency throughout the majority of the songs is the production/ mixing choices applied to this album. The wall of rhythm guitars is present of nearly each and every songs, but it nevertheless allow the lead licks to breathe, even when its lower in the mix. 

The title track itself has to my humble opinion the potential of a rock-pop crossover hit, partly thanks to Erik Grönwall’s nice vibrato. 

 

All in all, I still consider H.E.A.T’s second effort, 2012’s Address the Nation, to be the band’s most consistent effort. Breaking the Silence is an album opener that’s hard to beat. But I think that the high points on Tearing Down the Walls are higher. Never mind line-up changes, H.E.A.T is a band that glows and shines brighter than ever.

Buy the record on amazon.com

Is iTunes finally going to save our ears?

 

For audiophiles, iTunes has for all of its history been seen as the Apocalypse. The death of “physical music”, the rise of downloads. The beginning of music files compression, and the end of lossless data. Higher prices for a weak value. The death of the music album as a whole, and the reign of cherry-picking songs. To be fair, iTunes isn’t to blame for everything. The original limitations in terms of rate and power of the first consumer-accessible internet network and the parallel development of file sharing are the main reasons for the birth of data compression. Among other, the .mp3 format was developed, based on a rather accurate algorithm at the time : the idea was to delete inaudible information contained inside the music files to drastically reduce their size, while still offering a great and enjoyable audio listening experience. In fact, for most people and except on really high end equipment, the difference between a directly ripped from a Redbook CD uncompressed .wav file (1411 kb/s) and a high-rate .mp3 file (320 kb/s) is very hard to hear. So the original idea was great, and the ideal execution of it is good too: a similar audio experience, more songs on originally memory-limited portable devices. With the lowering of memory prices, storage capacities became bigger and the need of file compression became less obvious. But marketing teams continue to use the “up to x000000 songs on a hand-sized device”, “your entire CD collection in your pocket”, only mentioning in very small letters that you have to compress the files to put that much music on a player. And while a 320 kb/s .mp3 file is enjoyable, a 64 kb/s is absolutely horrendous.

So how can you prevent the consumer from noticing that putting one’s entire collection isn’t worth it if one has to drastically alter the sound? Well, you change production techniques. I really believe everything is quite linked. As we said, the .mp3 compression algorithm is quite well-done, only deleting very subtle sound nuances: the more you compress the file, the less subtle the deleted aspects are. So you produce music that has fewer nuances. You boost bass frequencies to mask the other ones: a bass-heavy song suffers less from extreme file compression than a layered one. Less subtle music, but less damage suffered from file-compression.

And here comes the loudness-wars. Basically, a vinyl/CD/data file was recorded and mastered at a certain volume. Back in the 80s, when the CD format was introduced, music was mastered quite “quietly”: mostly at about half the maximum level, meaning that, when played back on a device, this music was “crankable”. You could turn the volume nearly all the way up, if you wanted to, and the music still sounded great. Lots of dynamic range, meaning that quiet parts were quiet, and loud ones, louder. Seems logical and obvious, uh? Yeah, it is.

When portable devices became the norm, back in the early 2000s, mastering “norms” also changed. Companies started to master for a consumer that didn’t own an expensive CD player, but who was going rip the CD to put the files on an iPod. But a portable device has a limited volume playback level. So record companies decided to release re-mastered CDs, which doesn’t mean better sounding ones. The word itself only means that a new master was created, in this case with the base volume level significantly louder, often flirting with the maximum one, and in lots of case producing clipping, which means that it goes even beyond this maximum level, inducing distortion. Not very ear-friendly, is it? Of course, these records, on a decent CD player sound like shit. But they indeed, sound quite good on a laptop or listen through ear buds on an iPod. There goes the excess of loudness wars, meaning your music had to be always louder, often at the expense of dynamic range. That’s brickwalling for ya. And it’s pretty sad that popular music, both in a back catalogue department or new artists suffer from that. How sad is it that the currently in print AC/DC CDs sound compressed as hell, or that even when they target audiophiles, Universal release high-res versions of a brickwalled mastering for their new “Blu-Ray High Fidelity Pure Audio” brand?

 

But things seem to change. A few years ago, Apple introduced a “mastered for iTunes” label, explained by a downloadable .pdf file on their site. They’re giving advices to sound engineers, mainly not to send Apple a compressed master and to check the dynamic range, or else the files could be refused by Apple. Yeah. Quite surprising, it may seem.

 

But sometimes it’s hit or miss. AC/DC apparently finally entered the download platforms with the samecrappy mastering as the current CD versions. But some others are really, really good. A good example is the hot topic of the upcoming Led Zeppelin remasters. The entire discography appeared a few months ago “labeled” as Mastered for iTunes files, and comparisons showed that they were not issued from the current in print 1994 George Marino CD mastering. This one is quite good in its own right. But the MFiT are really, really another dimension. With the release ofthe same mastering as Redbook lossless files on Qobuz.com (meaning 16 bits/44kHz 1411kb/s .wav files), people seem to think that it’s probably the same mastering that Jimmy Page used for the upcoming CD remasters. And that’s a really, really good surprise. As long as the final remasters aren’t released, of course, we don’t really know. We don’t know if the files were mastered with the iTunes chart in mind. But if that was the case, it would be great news for the music industry.

With the rise of high resolution (meaning higher resolution than CD files, for example 24 bit/96 kHz or even 24 bit/192 kHz files) downloads, maybe mastering is becoming an art once again. Our ears would sure be thankful.

 

If you want to read more about it, or to witness different perspectives : What is 'Mastered For Itunes'? , Does “Mastered for iTunes” matter to music , Mastering engineer proves “Mastered for iTunes” doesn’t ‘sound closer to the CD’