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Artist: White Widdow |
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Australia
might not be known as a haven for 80’s AOR and Melodic Rock but one
band that is about to set the record straight are White Widow, who since
their insurgence in 2008 have rocked the Melbourne rock scene not only
with their live shows, but more so with their free digital EP. Now
in 2010 the band are set to conquer the rest of the world with their
self titled debut release, aided and abetted by the mixing and mastering
skill of Martin Kronlund and recorded with Chris Laney. The
album doesn't claim to be a revolution in the AOR and Melodic Rock
scenes, but does claim to take the best of genres heyday 80’s sound
and pays homage to bands like Dokken, Treat, White Sister, Survivor and
the rest. With
charismatic frontman Jules Millis (Julez Mephisto of the Deadthings)
leading the way with Enzo Almanzi on guitars, Trent Wilson on bass
duties, Xavier Millis (Jules’s brother) on keyboards and last but by
no means least Jim Nash on drums, the guys have produced an album that
will warm the very cockles of every fan of Melodic Rock. The
album opens up proper after the intro ‘Shoukai’ with ‘Tokyo
Rain’, which instantly sweeps away the twenty odd years that have seen
the Melodic Rock scene come from being the dominant genre of the decade
to becoming an almost underground scene, The
same pure gold MR continues with ‘Broken Hearts Won’t Last
Forever’, again Millis delivers a vocal that’s straight out of 86’
with the rest of the band just one step behind musically. As I
said at the beginning, the band aren’t out to re-write the book on MR,
they just want to pay tribute to the genre and this is what this album
does as it carries on with the keyboard infused ‘We’ve Got The
Wings’ and the excellent ‘Cross To Bare’. One of
my favourite tracks off the album has to be ‘Don’t Fail Me
Now’. A real touch of class that stands out from the rest of the
songs for me. It has that anthemic chorus that really floats my
boat. It's
clear to me that the band wear their influences on their sleeves and are
proud of the fact as there are so many similarities to bands past and
present and that’s the main selling point for this album, but it’s
the rockier tracks like ‘Spirit of Fire’ and ‘Shadow Of Fire’
that really show the band are more than just copy-cats of times gone by. The
remainder of the album is more of the same excellent AOR/MR and it's
clear to me this band have something that makes them fit in with
what’s happening in the scene are far as the likes of Scandinavian
scene goes. Whether this is due to Kronlund's and Laney's
influences doesn’t matter, the band would go down a storm with those
fans of the genre and there’s definitely the market for this style of
music as long as new bands still play it. We might not get those
heady days of the 80’s back, but we can still dream of times gone by
and salute the new bands coming through who are trying to keep the dream
alive. |
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Tracklisting: 1. Shoukai |
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