| CD REVIEW Spiritual Beggars |
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Band : Spiritual Beggars One of Swedens’ longest lasting bands, Spiritual Beggars, are back approximately a half decade later with a new CD and a new singer. With the departure of lead vocalist JB you might expect Spiritual Beggars’ 7th studio album to suffer; however, this is not the case. New Firewind singer Apollo Papathanasio proves to be a decent vocalist who can carry the tunes with as much emphasis as is needed. Return To Zero is simply more of the same from these Swedish purveyors of bluesy-fried classic rock ... and that's a good thing. Michael Amott, Ludwig Witt, Per Wiberg, Sharlee D’Angelo and fresh member Apollo know where their talents, and obviously their musical hearts, lie and they deliver the goods with solid, dependable style and energy. The title track is a shorter intro with only keyboards that goes straight into the first song “Lost in yesterday”. This is a catchy heavy rock track influenced by Sabbath-doom. Already Apollo shows that he really has a great vocal capacity. Admittedly, there are a few songs on this album that don't have the necessary edge, and they lope along falling into the cracks between spacey and rocking. These songs, including "Coming home” and "Believe in me” aren't offensive, they're just exceptionally dull. Thankfully they create a striking contrast with the better-crafted material like the delicate "Concrete horizon” or brilliant axe player Michael Amott’s take on Zak Wylde titled "The chaos of rebirth”. Over the course of the last couple of releases, Spiritual Beggars have evolved from their original stoner rock sound to become a hard rock band. While it lacks the groove punch of their previous works, Return To Zero is still a decent album. 85/100 Cosmicmasseur. |
