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Artist: Lillian Axe |
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Lillian Axe are one of the
bands who should have been much bigger and more well known than they
are. Like many bands to come out at the end of the eighties they were one of
the many bands to fall foul of that nineties disease we call Grunge.
Their self titled debut album was produced by RATT’s Robin Crosby and received critical acclaim. The second album 'Love And Hate' was ready to put the band on the rock map but MCA dropped the band and from here on in the future of the band looked black, with the band breaking up shortly after, only to reappear in 1992 for the ‘Poetic Justice’ opus. The band have released eight albums in their career to date, with this latest album ‘Sad Day On Planet Earth’ being their ninth studio album and one which sees the band returning with probably their best release in years. This is a good honest hard rock album, a little heavy in places but that’s not a bad thing as it shows the bands ever present ability to push their sound on into the now. The album opens up with the
intro ‘Cocoon’ before unleashing the modern rocker ‘Megaslowfade’,
a real promising opener full of heavy riffs and a tub thumping back beat,
with Derrick LeFevre’s vocals
adding that heavier feel to things. ‘Jesus
Wept’ is again a darker felt thumping slice of Hard Rock, it's clear from
the first two tracks that there must have been a lot of angst in Steve
Blaze’s life when he penned these songs and it's reflected in the overall
bands sound. If
the name of the album had been different then this would have gone
unnoticed as a decent hard rock album, but Lillian Axe on the cover may
find people wanting something more. But this is a good hard rock album
from a band that have never stuck to trends, they put out an album of what
they want not what people expect. Change is good, no change leaves no
change in the pocket, if you don’t take the band to the next level. The
album continues with the thumper ‘Ignite’, a real guitar laden track
with Blaze’s showing what a great guitar player he really is, as he does
one of my favourite tracks off the album ‘The Grand Scale Of Finality’,
a raw guitar riff fuelled track. The
album mixes things up really well with the heavier vibes being matched
with more melodic pieces the title track ‘Sad Day On Planet Earth’ and
‘Within Your Reach being the latter and on WYR, the band have enlisted
Michael T Ross for some extra keyboards, while on the heavy side you have
the moody ‘Down Below The Ocean’, ‘Dark Day In Hell’ and the down
right black ‘Divine’, before another great track ‘Kill Me Again’
and finally the album closer ‘Fire Blood The Earth And Sea’. With fifteen tracks on the album there’s sure to be something on here to satisfy those fans of the band who know what to expect from a Lillian Axe album and also those of you have an open mind and aren’t still stuck in the 80’s and believe change isn’t a bad thing.
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Tracklisting:
01. Cocoon (Instrumental)
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All content copyright of The Mayfair Mall Zine unless otherwise stated. |
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