Page 31 - Classic Rock (January 2020)

Kennedy and Tremonti might have had
solo projects on the go, but judging by Walk
The Sky we can’t see them abandoning their
day job any time soon. DS
Killer track: Dying Light

AIRBOURNE
21 Boneshaker SPINEFARM
The bludgeoning
sledgehammer of a PR
line for the Aussies’ fifth
album – “This is
a fucking rock’n’roll
reco
rd” – wasn’t
kidding. Recorded with Rival Sons
producer Dave Cobb, it’s a flaming,
stripped-to-the-bone blast of sweat, sex
and danger. Their love for AC/DC has long
been one of the most widely acknowledged
things in rock’n’roll, but here Airbourne tip
their hat to the Bon Scott days with more
guts and gall than ever. And it’s all over in
30 breakneck minutes. You’ll make up
your own mind, but it’s difficult to see how
any lover of balls-to-the-wall rock’n’roll
wouldn’t get a kick out of this. PG
Killer track: Sex To Go

DIAMOND HEAD

20 The Coffin Train
SILVER LINING MUSIC
Thirty-nine years since
Diamond Head’s debut
Alter Bridge album defined them as
one of the great
THE CLAYPOOL NWOBHM bands (and
23 LENNON DELIRIUM TOP 5 ided Lars Ulrich
prov
South Of Reality ATOS with much of the blueprint for the fledgling
It’s impossible to talk AOR Metallica), The Coffin Train delivered
about the Claypool heaviness and depth in equal measure.
Lennon Delirium ALBUMS With guitarist and founding member Brian
without bringing John Tatler still a genius of riffs, and singer
‘father of Sean’ Lennon Rasmus Bom Andersen’s range and tone
Words: Dave Ling
into
the equation, so evoking Chris Cornell, there is earth-
we’ll tackle the elephant in the room up WORK OF ART shaking power in The Messenger, and
front: this album is kinda Beatle-ish. It’s not 1 Exhibits FRONTIERS sombre beauty in Until We Burn. From first
moptop Beatles, and it’s not sappy stuff That The Defiants track to last, it’s epic stuff. PE
Beatles. It’s weird Beatles, it’s dark Beatles, made the best Killer track: The Messenger
it’s experimental Beatles, and Sean Lennon AOR album of
and Primus’s Les Claypool have come up 2019 with TOOL
with a minor psychedelic classic. FL Zokusho is 19 Fear Inoculum MUSIC FOR NATIONS
reco
Killer track: Blood And Rockets gnised by that Arriving almost 5,000
record’s presence in our mainstream days on from previous
ALTER BRIDGE end-of-year chart. Meanwhile, with album 10,000 Days,
22 Walk The Sky NAPALM some help from ex-Survivor man Tool’s fifth album
an album of pure AOR to thrill fans digest as it did to anticipate. Conspicuously
proper required nearly
Jim Peterik, Work Of Art produced
Majestic, melodic,
uch patience to
menacing, metallic.
as m
of Toto, Journey and Giant.
The sixth album by
the Florida quartet is
lacking any up-tempo punchy tracks
ECLIPSE
previously scattered through their records,
a monster in all
departments. With two 2 Paradigm FRONTIERS
formidable singer-songwriter-guitarists – its slow-burn, impossibly dense spider’s
web of mutating time signatures,
Myles Kennedy and Mark Tremonti – now DEGREED polyrhythms and staccato riffs rewarded
in their pomp, songs such as Wouldn’t You 3 Lost Generation GAIN concentration levels above your typical
Rather and Native Son combine hardcore ART NATION 21st-century base line. More spacious in
JOEL O'KEEFFE: KEVIN NIXON vocal harmonies and profound lyrics. ‘If 4 Transition GAIN Joel O'Keeffe, stuffed with A-grade hooks and melodies,
tone and delivery than usual, yet amply
metal guitar sounds and beats with soaring
I die tonight…will I have lived in vain?’ they ask
there’s enough to chew on for another few
CRAZY LIXX
on Clear Horizon. Not with an album like
thousand days at least. TB
Airbourne
this thy won’t.
Killer track: Descending
5 Forever Wild FRONTIERS
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 27