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Artist: House Of Lords |
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Well we're well into
September’s releases and what would have been a simple task to pick my
album of the month has seen me pick and choose between a few but then
the new House Of Lords album arrived and simply blew me away.
James Christian brought the world to its feet with the 'World Upside Down' and 'Welcome to My Kingdom' albums, which I thought were phenomenal slices of Melodic/Hard Rock and thought to top these albums would be hard, but not one to dodge a challenge, Christian along with Jimi Bell, Chris McCarvill and B.J. Zamba, are about the blow you away with their new album ‘Cartesian Dreams’. The album opens up in truly spectacular style with the title track ‘Cartesian Dreams’ and from the off I dare anyone to say that they aren’t blown away with the sound coming out of their speakers. Christian’s vocals are superb and Zamba’s drums power on through whilst Bell adds that heavy guitar riff that the man in black does so well. The great Hard Rock just oozes out of every pore of this album with ‘Born To Be Your Baby’ next up. A great track that takes you back to the great days of the bands debut album. This track is meant to played live in arena’s, it’s just superb, a real hard rocking orgasm for sure. Another classy slice of Melodic/Hard Rock has to be the excellent ‘Desert Rain’, again Christian focus’s his song-writing on the war in Iraq with this one, a great track and one where Christian airs his feelings via his songs, once again Bell just explodes on the six string to give the track that gritty feel. But where Christian really shines vocally has always been on the ballads and here on ‘Sweet September’ he shows what a great talent he is, as the mellow tones just wash over you like a comforting blanket that just envelopes you and takes you to your safe place. It’s back to the rockier stuff with another favourite of mine ’Bangin’. Again a thumper of a rock song. Quite simply "Bangin’" Hard Rock from Christian and the boys. Even the sixteen seconds of ‘A Simple Plan’ the prelude to ‘Never Look Back’, it's good such is the high quality of this release. 'Never Look Back' is a grittier riff fuelled rockers on which Bell and the rhythm section really go head to head with the only winner being the listener, glorious stuff indeed. A real master class in Melodic Hard Rock, the album just exceeds all expectations as the great tracks just keep on coming with the excellent ‘The Bigger They Come’ and ‘Repo Man’, only being edged out as track of the album by a short head to ‘Saved By Rock’, a great anthemic track that will have you rockin' for sure. The album closes with the more gentile tones of ‘Joanna’, another superb mid-tempoed rocker. The album also boasts a bonus track ‘The Train’, a great bluesy slow burner that rounds off what has to be not only the best House of Lords album in recent years, but also one of the albums of the year for me and one that will be my Editors Choice for September.
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| Tracklisting:
01.
Cartesian Dreams
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