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Artist: Mastedon |
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It's been far too long since Mastedon released their last album but now in 2009, John Elefante and brother Dino are bringing back Mastedon to the ears of the masses, and this time John is providing all the lead vocals on what is a Mammoth release (sorry couldn’t help myself!). Simply
entitled ‘3’ this is a new breed of Mastedon with John proving what
a great vocalist he is. His voice brings back memories of Paul
Rodgers and Lou Gramm in the late seventies and eighties in his vocal
style. The bands sound is very much on the high end of the scale
of Melodic Hard Rock. As each track is an engaging mix of melody
splendor and grace and is what all fans of the genre have been waiting
for since the bands ‘It’s
a Jungle Out There!’ and ‘Lofcaudio’ albums. And
believe me the ten year wait is all put aside when the album opener
‘Revolution Of Mind’ hits the ear-drums. J Elefante’s vocals
are just superb and with brother Dino’s superb guitar skills, backed
by a plethora of guest artists including Anthony Sallee bass, Dan
Needham drums, Tim Smith bass on 'Slay Your Demons' and Jr McNeely, who
provides additional guitar on 'Questions', this is an album of sheer
class. This
superb release continues with ‘Slay Your Demons’, again with J
Elefante’s vocals being just excellent on this one, as is Dino’s
towering guitars, just one of the many highlights on the album. The
album does mix things up a bit from time to time and it's not just great
gentle Melodic Rock numbers, with the likes of ‘Nowhere Without Your
Love’. The band produce some great up tempo rockers like
‘Water Into Wine (Fassa Rokka)’ and the poppy rocker ‘You Can’t
Take Anything’ with its Foreigner feel. One particular
outstanding slice of modern rock is ‘The Western World’, which once
again shows there's an air of Bad Company/Foreigner about this one,
although it also has that NOW factor that makes it stand out from the
crowd for me. Another
favourite of mine has to be ‘That’s What You Do’. Again a
modern twist on a classic sound with a heavier guitar sound. The
album closes the haunting ballad ‘Dust In The Wind’, another great
vocal from J Elefante once more, which has been the dominant factor
throughout the entire album. This
one is high on my list of albums of the year and is just what every fan
of great soulful rock has been waiting for, and this album has it in
trunk loads. (Again sorry!)
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Tracklisting:
01.
Revolution Of Mind
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