Album review : GARY JOHN BARDEN – Empowered Emotions

September 5th, 2026 by brianmc

Frontiers [Release date : 18.09.27]

There’s an abundance of richly melodic twists, ear-catching hooks and smoky Coverdale vocalisms running through the veins of Empowered Emotions, a new album from Gary John Barden.

Barden’s CV is well documented online. He’s fronted many a classy rock band, but he’s best known as The Michael Schenker Group’s vocalist during the eighties.

Jump to 2006 and he was recording with Michael Voss, who played guitar, produced and cowrote the Agony And Xtacy album with Barden.

GRTR’s Andy Nathan said: “the arrangements give Gary’s voice a relaxed, lived-in warmth. Indeed he puts in possibly the finest vocal performance of his career.”

So here we have two craftsmen, whose songwriting partnership continues to deliver today.

As musicians, they’re clearly tight with each other, and yet they leave each other enough space between those moments. It’s all about restraint. You can hear how well they listen to each other; nothing feels crowded.

They have this effortless give-and-take, and such holding back implies a confidence in the material which is well justified.

It’s a chapter in a twisting tale that continually reinvents itself. And that’s a compliment not a condemnation.

By skillfully combining old fashioned melodic rock with compelling, graphic lyrics and contemporary direction, they have created a very distinctive sound.

The album opens with ‘Maasai Enkai’. A culture collision of rock’n’roll and ethnic dancing in the dust.

Enkai is the supreme monotheistic deity of the Maasai people, who are native to both Kenya and Tanzania. It’s prayer like, and the choir adds to that. “You move like wind across the plains, your spirit still remains”.

The title track ‘Empowered Emotions’, has similarities. You could make an argument that Barden is channelling Albert Hammond’s rough hewed intensity, on either or both.

‘Burning Wind’ underpinned by Voss’s insistent, rolling rhythms, coupled with ‘Dark Water’, which emotes a vaguely spiritual sense of desolation, take their cues from Barden’s achingly eloquent vocals. The duo are weaving a rich musical tapestry between them.

The bluesy, locomotive motions of ‘Hit The Ground’ are probably the album most commercial moments.

And while a ghostly choir leads us on a galloping romp through the wastelands of ‘Ride Horsemen Ride’, ‘This Phoenix’ brings us back to solid ground. Powerful stuff. ****1/2

Review by Brian McGowan

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