| CD REVIEW TSM/SLW Promotions special, February 2010 |
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TSM/SLW Promotion special February 2010, #1: Jimminy creepers! My editor-in-chief just informs me over the phone that he’s got some 30 releases at his home, all of which were sent to the website through the intermediary of the TSM/SLW Promotion agency! That community is beginning to get frighteningly big, I tell you! Anyway, here’s reviews for a first bunch of bands. Expect a next batch within the coming fortnight!!! Band : Robin Brock If you believe her family members, Calgary (Alberta, Canada) born Robin Brock sang before she could talk. As a child, she listened to Elvis and The Eagles, and was introduced at young age to Kiss, which along with Pat Benatar she mentions as her earliest influences. Always having written stories and poetry, it was only natural that Robin wrote her first song at the tender age of 11. She was in the 10th grade, when she was noticed by local rock band Live Wire when she was performing a solo in the school choir. The boys promptly asked if she would be their lead singer, and she was to perform only two days later. Evidently, she was terribly nervous for her first performance, to the point of completely forgetting the words to the second verse of the first song. In spite of that initial fuck-up Robin felt she was made to be a singer/performer, and the band stayed together for about 2 years, playing covers for dances, concerts, parties and local bars, and even started to play some own songs to which Robin had penned the lyrics. Then she graduated, and decided she wanted to pursue a career in music. With her parents’ full support, she moved back to Calgary (the family had moved to British Columbia when she was only one year old) and started to work in a studio, learning about the music business. Regrettably, the studio went broke. Undaunted, she continued to write new material and record demos, and eventually met co-writers John Capek (wrote Rod Stewart’s hit songs “Rhythm Of My Heart” and “This”) and Danny Jacob (played guitar with Cher, Sheena Easton, George Michael, and Bette Midler) through an agent whom was shopping her demos to record labels. Eventually tired of hearing the same excuses (“…this is nice, but not what we’re looking for at the moment…”) from record labels, Robin (who voved to one day wallpaper her walls with all the rejection letters she got over the years) and John eventually put together Blame It On Rock And Roll (pre-production in L.A., actual recordings in what would later be known as The Greenhouse studios in B.C.). With John playing all keyboards, other musicians involved were bassist Steve Webster (had toured with Alannah Miles) and drummer Jorn Andersen, Robin herself playing the guitar. Released in 1995 on her own label in Canada, the album was licenced in 1999 to British label A2 Records for worldwide distribution. Obviously, Robin’s music career didn’t pay off much, and to make ends meet she’s taken on several kinds of jobs: waitress, carnival game attendant, house cleaner, info centre guide, shake block cutter, logger’s helper (her father is a logger), and fire fighter (more of her father rubbin’ off…actually, when the wood fire season starts, all things music are dropped for about 3 months, time during which she gets payed quite handsomely). Nevertheless, she’s had a few beautiful moments. Her first 2 videos were show on local TV video shows, the third (for “She’s Outta Control”) was shown on Much Music’s Indy Spotlight show. She represented Canada performing at Roumania’s Golden Stag Festival (with headliners Tom Jones, Coolio, La Bouche) in front of 5,000 plus audiences every night (the shows were also broadcast on national TV). The song “Rockin’ The Airwaves” from the debut album made N°1 in the Rock Category at the South Pacific International Song contest. The songs “I’m Doin’ Fine” and “That Scares Me”, which would later appear on her second album Hidden Power (2003), both won the Rock Category prize at the Holland’s Song Expo in 2001. And of course she met several famous people in (Hard) Rock music over the years! She met songwriter Alan Roy Scott in Australia, and got together with him in May 2000 to co-write 3 songs in about 12 hours (2 of which got onto Hidden Power). She met Randy Bachman (of The Guess Who and Bachman Turner Overdrive) at a TAXI seminar in L.A., got together with him a year later, and co-wrote 3 songs in one day (all of which would land on Hidden Power). She met Keith Olson (producer of her favourite Pat Benatar album Precious) at a conference in Durango, Colorado, and ended up doing pre-production for Hidden Power with him and Tim Pearce in Seattle, then recorded it with him at Goodnight L.A., with James Kottak (Krunk, Scorpions) on drums, Jeff Pilson (Dokken) on bass, and Tim Pearce on guitar (Bachman also did a guest appearance on “I Surrender”, a song which was chosen as a finalist in Ireland’s National Song Contest For Peace, and eventually also landed on the Canadian compilation We Salute Our Heroes). The album was released to radio in Europe and UK, and was Album Of The Week for the British Armed Forces Radio. Powerplay Rock And Metal Magazine voted Robin as #2 Female Vocalist and #1 International Artist. In spite of all those small successes, Robin’s Canadian label dropped her just prior to her having a rather serious downhill mountain bike accident (besides music and fire fighting, that is one of her most favourite occupations…the biking, not the accident part, okay!?), and as a result she was forced to take it easy for 7 weeks. Just before the accident (must’ve been early 2008, I guess), she’d gotten só fed up with the whole music business and had been contemplating throwing in the towel altogether. But being forced to spend your days on a couch (she had a non-wearing cast) can be pretty boring, and before long Robin was writing off all her frustrations. Then the cast finally came off, but only days later she was called on to fight fires again! And it’s during the three months that followed that the magic of music again did its great job. People she worked alongside during the fire fights got interested in her music, started buying her albums to support her career, and ended up becoming fans! Evidently, with such new support, she got her courage back to continue, and contacted old writing partner John Capek. Work on the new album advanced slowly, the duo preferring to work that way in order to get things done to perfection. Danny Jacob was invited to play the guitar on the album opening title track. Another guest role was laid aside for former Triumph guitarist Rik Emmett (on the songs “Two Words” and “Power it Through”). Guitar duties for the other 7 songs were entrusted to session musician Justin Abedin (who’s really got an impressive curriculum)…and Capek performed all other instruments and programming. What with the slow work ethic, some of the songs that were to appear on the album already made an impact on the Rock society at large. For instance, “New Addiction” got awarded an “Honorable Mention” in the Rock/Alternative Category of the 12th annual Unisong International in March 2009. Due to a very heavy fire season in 2009, the album’s mastering didn’t get done until September, and at that time Robin was yet to finish her work on the album cover, which she drew herself. So there it finally is, Robin Brock’s third album Monsters, and a monster of an album it is indeed! With Robin’s list of favourite artists now grown to include (also) Bryan Adams, Def Leppard, Richard Marx, Bon Jovi and Heart, plus fellow Canucks Jann Arden and Tal Bachman, it looks like she prefers her Hard Rock on the Heavy side, and this goes majestically well with her voice, which has been compared to a hibrid of Ann Wilson, Shania Twain, and Pat Benatar by one reviewer, and a hibrid of Celine Dion, Ann Wilson and Joan Jett by another. Truth is, both comparisons go perfectly well with this great Canadian Rock Lady! She doés have a softer side too though, as proven by the album’s ballad “Solitary Girl”. Word is, the original lyrics for the album had far too many curse words in ‘em, and when listening to “Two Words” and the atmosphere on many other songs, this cat was pretty angry when she was writing! Lucky enough she cleanced up the lot! To get in touch with what nice music this lady makes, you can either go to the “Music” section on her own website (robinbrock.com) to find samples of each song on the album, or listen to full-length versions of the album’s title track plus the aforementioned “New Addiction” (and 2 songs off the other albums) at myspace.com/robinbrock. Pity there isn’t more of “Master And Slave” for you to listen to, which already got a (fictionary) prize in the “Dirty Dirty Song!” category by one Canadian reviewer! As Robin comments, it’s all a matter of perspective. At any rate, what you get is a fine collection of songs with darn catchy melodies that nestle themselves in the back of your head at a first listen. Then when you listen to the album again, you start discovering these little quircks that show an underlaying touch of complexity! Definitely an album worth listening to several times with a different ear, and after having done that myself, I have no other option opened to myself than to nominate Monsters in the “Best Albums Of 2010” list, “Heavy Rock” category…and let’s drop the “female” thing for this time, okay? So she’s a Rock chick…she’s a darn good one too, I tell ya! 98/100 Band : Essenza Wow man, how refreshing: for once I was in no need to go out on a search for info due to none or insuffient data given with the promo…s, there we go!!! Based in the South-Italian town of Lecce (last real important town in the “heel” of Italy’s “boot”), Essenza was formed in 1993 by brothers Carlo (guitar, lead vocals) and Alessandro “Alex” Rizello (bass). At first the duo collaborated with other members on vocals, drums, and keyboards, but when their younger brother Luca joined ‘em as drummer and song arranger (as well as keyboard and string player), they reversed to a trio. In those days, their music was “an explosive cocktail of Blues Hard Rock, Rock ‘n’ Roll, and Prog Rock with classical ItaloRock influences (lyrics in Italian). Following the release of the band’s first 2 demo CDs (1996’s 6-track Essenzaand 1998’s 7-track Algoritmo 60) the guys increased the heavieness oftheir material and evolved to a melodic Heavy Rock style inspired by the international monsters of Heavy Metal (Black Sabbath, AC/DC, Judas Priest, Van Halen, Megadeth, …) with Thrash and Power Metal influences, but still with Italian lyrics. The band was signed by the Kick Promotion Agency in 2000, resulting in the recording and release of two studio albums: Suggestioni(2000, with re-arranged songs from their demo CDs) and Contrasto(2002)…with a track on the Kick Vol.1 compilation (2001) to boot (featuring a collection of bands signed to the agency). In November 2004 Luca leaves the band, to be replaced by drummer Paolo Colazzo (from the bands Abash and Shade Out). With continued live work happening, the band releases the bootleg recordings (comprised of both covers and original material) of a March 2006 performance at the NorthWindbar in Bari (140 kms North along the coastline from their hometown) in April 2006 under the title XIII Anniversary Live. The band’s first studio recordings with the new drummer would be something special, as the lyrics for the 3 songs on 2007’s EP Dance Of Liars would all be in English (a first-timer for the band). Also on the EP, the band’s first actual video (for the song “deep Into Your Eyes”). In early 2009 the band signed a new management deal with Armageddon Alliance, which leads to their signing to independent label BigMud, who release the album we have in our hands in May 2009. Now that we’re on a roll, let’s continue. In early June 2009 the band releases a video for their new album’s title track through YouTube. While positive reviews and interviews (mainly in Italian magazines/ webzines) keep coming in, the band also signs to TSM/SLW for the promotion of their album in the UK. Nicky Baldwyn of the agency would then he himself interview the band for an article in UK magazine Fireworks, whom include the title track of the new album in the free covermount CD of their #38 issue. Which leaves me to my personall appreciation notes on the album/ band. With only 3 members in the band, the guys certainly understand how to make a big wall of sound, without goin’ too heavy on the distortion pedal! The music is relatively simple and mid-paced, but has a catchieness that grabs you in the crutch in the most affective way. It’s therefore somewhat of a pity that the Bluesy and mid-high pitched vocals suffer from a typical Italian accent. On top, Carlo is far from ever winning a singing contest. One thing’s for sure though: his English lyrics come over quite clearly, and you won’t misunderstand what he’s singing about. Besides a song off the live album, Essenza have posted no less than 5 tracks of their new album at myspace.com/essenzait. Enough for you to find out whether you’re gonna let the slight accent bother you, or not! 87/100 Band : Gerald Krampl In all honesty, before getting this album for review, I had never heard about Austrian keyboard player Gerald Krampl. Reason enough for me to go on an Internet search! Turns out Krampl was the moving force (main songwriter & keyboardist) behind renowned ‘70s and ‘80s cult bands Kyrie Elyson (1974-1979, ‘70s Prog Rock, recorded/ released one album in their lifetime) and Indigo (1982-1993, combination of Prog Rock with more commercial Pop; solo project for Krampl since 1988; released several singles and 3 albums – one a compilation including unreleased early works and a live registration), bands for whom he recorded the music in his own studio. After a period of musical inactivity, Krampl started the Agnus Dei project with his wife Hilde, for a combination of New Age music with esoteric poetry. Onset for the project was the duo’s interest in Reiki (of which they had master/ teacher degrees), runes, and forms of meditation. This would result in a total of 4 CDs, but only one of those (Lemuria, 2002) was released during Hilde’s lifetime, since she died of cancer in late 2002 (followed 2003’s Merlin and Angelos, plus 2004’s Gaia). He then used the material from the Agnus Dei albums to produce 2 albums under the Reiki monicker, adding soothing sounds of relaxing waves and ocean sounds to enhance the inspirational, spiritual music. In 2006 came a new challenge, when Krampl was asked to make music to go with 31Projects, a TV documentary for educational and enlightnment pusposes, about the Holocaust in WW2 (visit freely at 31projects.at). Originally, Krampl had planned to make a new solo album after that, but plans changed due to the nice experience with and influence of the soundtrack project (which contained quite a few electronic elements) he’d just finished. In stead, he was now gearing towards making soundtrackish music, music for imaginary movies, music which was to combine his past experience with Prog Rock with electronic and E-Lounge music…and thus the album Timediver(2008) came to live. During Summer 2008 came the idea to make music to a spoken word (German only) fairy tale album, something which swiftly came to fruition thanks to a good collaboration with narrator Corinna Steinböck. Released in 2009, Es War Eimal… turned out interesting for both children and adults. From the material made for that last project immediately developed the idea for the next album, the one we have in the cd-player right now. With the idea in mind to be able to perform the music in a minimum stage setting (one violinist and cellist besides Krampl), the composer this time geared away from commercialism, trying to stay as close to the roots of minimalism (piano plus a max of 2 strings – obviously generated synthetically for the album) as possible…but not without adding sparce electronic and nature sound effects, thus making again for the soundtrackish thing! The album is said (on indigimusic.at, where you’ll find mp3-files of 4 of the album’s tracks) to be somewhat dark and melancholic, and (conceptually) about the endless cycle of destruction and reawakening. Personally, I feel the melancholic mood is still do-able, as the soundtrackish part of the music keep the listener on his toes. Once I got the feel for it, I couldn’t help noticing the meditative inspiration quality of the music (well, Krampl doés make that kind of music, you know). The same songs as on indigomusic.at can also be found at myspace.comgeraldkrampl, but with the addition of 4 tracks off Timediverand 31Projects (and a wacky animated video for the Innocent Wasteland track “Intimate Ghosts”). For those among us who understand the ways of meditational healing through music…enjoy (for a bit of contemplative soul-searching, Krampl’s music is darn well-suited)! Others may find Krampl’s music a bit too…sedate, perhaps? Parts of the music of the new album have already been used for a new web presentation, (www.)7minuten.at about “disability” in a personal context. 88/100 Band : Secret Smile From Connecticut (USA), Pop Rock act Secret Smile was originally founded in 1991 with a line-up that has remained the same throughout their history. Actually, singer TJ Gabrieli and (lead) guitarist (and also keyboardist) Ken Barberio were at the basis of it all, starting off as a duo in 1989 after being sick and tired of having in-and-out going people for bandmates. They secluded themselves in the basement of Ken’s house, and started writing & recording songs of their own. Somehow, John Dubuque (whom would later become tour manager for the likes of Cindy Lauper and Shania Twain) was the first to take interest in the duo’s material, and he introduced the guys to former ArcAngel musician and AOR legend Jeff Cannata (a relationship which lasted through the years and goes on today). Other musicians (guitarist Scott Wilson, bassist Todd Wilson, and drummer Bob Ventresca) were recruited, and with productional help from Cannata the band recorded the material for their self-released 2004 debut album Anatomy. Remember, it was the mid-Nineties, Grunge had stuck up it’s ugly head, and no “self-respecting” US label was gonna release an album by an ‘80s Pop Rock/ Hairband…but later that same year the band found UK label SPG willing to release the album. Still, the album got some promo through interviews on a couple of the biggest Connecticut radios at the time, and airplay from several college radios. They were featured on numerous compilation albums (on independent labels), and soon found themselves playing support to such bands as (in alphabetical order) Bret Michaels, Danger Danger, Dan Reed Network Dokken, Enuff Z’nuff, Foreigner, Jefferson Starship, Kix, Lilian Axe, Meatloaf, Nine Days, Patty Smith & Scandal, Peter Wolf, Ratt, Rick Springfield, Starship, Steel Heart, Sweet, Tall Stories, Ted Poley, The Rembrandts, Tuff, Warrant, White Lion, Willie Nile and Winger. Follow-up album Brick It! came in 2007, issued by the now defunkt J-Bird Records. After a gig at legendary New Jersey venue Stone Pony, the members decided to take a break from music and each other. The band got back together in 2003 after having been approached by Metal Mayhem Records to record a new album. Since then, new studio albums The Road Less Travelled (2003) and Hurry Up And Wait (2005, this album had backing vocals on 2 tracks by Ted Poley) were released, which saw the band get an increasing popularity thanks to the more open-minded view on music in general, and the return of Melodic Hard Rock in specific, since the turn of the decade, century, millenium. Live promotion for the latter album found the band playing supports with Foreigner and Danger Danger (Ted Poley being their lead singer, as you may well know), which evidently aided a lot to promote the band on US soil! Although Secret Smile’s newest album would only be released in September 2009 (on new label Envision, which I very much suspect to be the band’s own), they already posted the title track for the album on their MySpace page in February (no additional tracks off the new album have since been added). From it and other tracks (off the band’s last album, plus the Fleedwood Mac cover “Go Your Own Way”) at myspace.com/officialsecretsmile (also the band’s official website), you will be able to assertain that Secret Smile’s musis is quite keyboard-laden, and even if such is not the original intent, all songs on the album have a love song touch to ‘em…meant to woo the ladies. I mean, even semi-ballad “I’m On My Way”, in which the singer touches the fact that he misses his wife and kids, can be construed as a make-out track! He IS, after all, singing the song to an audience with quite a bunch of young girls in it, isn’t he? Must be quite a turn-on for those ladies to reach out to this “very sensitive” guy and “console” him! At any rate, the music is great, the lead singer is high grade, and the harmonic backings are the icing on the cake! Why the likes of AOR Heaven or Frontiers haven’t reached out to this quintet yet to sign ‘em to their roster, is beyond my comprehension! 85/100 Band : Sententia Jeepers, I feel I simply cannot start this otherwize than with the nice opening lines included in this band’s bio: The year was 2006. The effects of global warming had made January feel earily mild. Yet despite mild temperatures, Winter depression had still struck into the minds of those who are so often tortured by inner turmoil and the defeat of life’s unbalancing challenges. During this time, one artist became inspired to share her views and observations of such a human condition. It was at this time that Dede Booth founded the Boston Rock band Sententia (Latin for “many voices”. Her vision, to create a unique blend of music accessible to any listener of Rock, whether it be Progressive or Alternative. Through this music, she would exploit the suffering to search for inner peace and would challenge the questions so many of us wish to find and answer to: “What drives us to our actions?”, “Where is the line that we will inevitably cross, and when will it happen?”, “Do we have what it takes to regain our humanity and live within a balance of our minds and reality?” Booth gave a first peek into what was to come with the April 2006 released EP Fruition, on which she played all instruments. According again to the bio, the EP’s music and words were “…both haunting and dark, and yet with a chill sent down one’s spine, the album presents itself with melodic, instrumental passages fused with catchy choruses that create at least one ray of light…”! And it’s that sudden, schizophrenic contrast from light to dark what paved the start to the Sententia sound. In hindsight, Dede herself has been found to confess that the EP’s music was more Mainstream Rock-geared, more of a Pop orientation than the material that was to follow! After the release of the EP, Dede occasionally brought her songs in a live setting on her own with just the acoustic guitar, announcing it as acoustic evenings, so people would know they were to expect something different from the album. Working towards the release of the full-length album, Dede decided she wanted to start re-creating the sounds from her album on stage, and had therefore to recruite members to bring the music. On the bass, she was able to get one Jason Kessel. She also got ahold of a guitarist, but he suddenly realized his participation to Sententia was conflicting with his other occupations, and had to leave after only a month. For live drums (in the studio she obviously does that herself), she eventually got one Mark Sexton, out on tour with another band at the time. To try and describe Sententia’s music, could be quite a chore, if it wasn’t for someone noticing that she’s quite remeniscent to Porcupine Tree (one of Dede’s influences) in the layered-ness. Seen the specific melancholy mood she touches upon, it is perhaps understandable that Sententia’s music is overall of a rather sedate kind, the underlaying electric guitar rarely bursting out of its restraints, strings being there all around, and considering that Dede’s vocals are of the softly moaned (well, maoned may be a strong word to describe ‘em, but they’re definitely melancholic) a categorisation of Sententia into the Gothic realm of things quite justified! Check it out for yourself: there’s 4 tracks off the album (plus a live versiion of one, as performed live at Boston’s Middle East venue in late December. If you’re into soft, layered Goth, you’re gonna lóve this, I’m sure. People into slightly complex music may find this band very soothing to listen to as well! 90/100 Tony. |
