|
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
One of my old personal favourite hard rock bands from the 80's was Ozzy's ex sticksman Carmine Appice's awesome band King Kobra. With three albums: Ready to Strike - 85, Thrill of a Lifetime - 86 and an independent release entitled "King Kobra III" in 1988, Carmine closed the project when he joined John Sykes band 'Blue Murder' in -89. King Kobra's orginal singer Mark Free is probably most known to the afterworld as the guy, who went through a gender change and is now known as Marcie Free. Anyhow King Kobra was one of the most interesting new hair rock bands from that time, especially the first two discs from Capitol Records are worth getting your hands on. King Kobra 2013 is: Carmine Appice, David Henzerling (Michael-Phillips), Mick Sweda, Johnny Rod, and Paul Shortino on vocals, and they are back with full force and energy. The high speed train song 'Hell On Wheels' is a killer track with good old powerful rock n' roll! Mr Shortino's grainy and thorny voice together with the splendid drumming from Mr. Appice and the lightning string benders Swedea and Henzerling make my legs start to bounce to their comeback album, which sounds very promising. I don't know how many whiskeys and cigarettes it takes to get that magnificent rock voice Paul has cultivated. The joy from the music that flows out of the speakers is really addictive. Listen to the groovy blues song 'The Ballad of Johnny Rod' that gets ZZ Top to fade away with envy. In the slow and sensitive 'Take Me Back' they touch my old heart and I play it over and over. Is this what I expected from these gentlemen after twentyfive years of absence? My answer is YES, this is exactly what I and we fans of 80's hard rock want to hear. Nothing too technical or too advanced or any high speed tempo rock. This is classic hard rock from adult musicans, who knows what we like to listen to. And maybe that is the only negative thing I have to say about 'II'. The lack of blazing guitar solos and maybe some more up-tempo songs, but nevertheless, I think this is truly cool to enjoy. The thumbs are up!! The best tracks are besides 'Hell On Wheels' and 'The ballad...' are the heavy song 'The Crunch', the riffing track 'When the Hammer Comes Down' and the great songs 'Got It Coming'. Welcome back guys! | ||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||
