Album review: HOUSE OF SHAKIRA – Lint XXV

Frontiers [release date: 11.02.22]

Well, this is interesting… two richly textured remasters of House Of Shakira’s 1997 album, Lint.
It is a most unusual approach. To celebrate the album’s 25th Anniversary, the first disc is a remastered version of the original release, with (then new) vocalist Andreas Eklund. The second is a remastered alternative version with the band’s original singer, Michael Ericsson handling lead vocals.

They went with the “Eklund version” at the time.

Even now, 24 years later, it’s easy to remember the band’s bravura performance on Lint. It was an exciting attempt to re-invent the melodic rock genre after the first wave of Grunge had receded.

Brimful of punchy, melodic, hard hitting songs, the album made the fast growing online AOR media sit up and take notice.

From the tightly woven arrangements on CD1, and the compact, hermetically sealed harmonies of ‘Morning Over Morocco’ and the title track,’Lint’, to the satisfying chord and lyric counterpoise of ballad, ‘The Story Is The Same’, the songs sound amazingly intense and vibrant.

As has been observed many times since, Andreas Eklund’s vocals bear more than a passing resemblance to those of Tommy Shaw. It’s impossible not to compare his taut as a bowstring high harmonies to Shaw’s contribution on many of Styx’s and Damn Yankees’s better AOR/Pop tunes.

Eriksson’s singing makes a significant difference to the sound of the same material on CD2. His lighter timbre reduces the impact that the band and producer were clearly trying to achieve on Lint.

That said, his high harmonies are sweeter and more restrained. That allows him to lean back into songs like ‘Method Of Madness’, ‘Who’s Lying Now’ and ‘No.8′, giving the sentiments and the romantic elements room to catch hold.

You pays your money, and you takes your choice.

Vocalists to oneside, we shouldn’t lose sight of what this band achieved. Lint was a bold try at reprogramming the sound of an era, without going anywhere near the grunge bandwagon that attracted so many others. ****

review by Brian McGowan

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Power Plays w/c 11 November 2024

ARCANE MOON Hello Sun (indie)
S8NT ELEKTRIC XTC (Long Branch Records)
ARCANA KINGS Here We Go (Curtain Call Records)
KLOGR face The Unknown (Zeta Factory)
BEYOND UNBROKEN Dance With The Dead (FiXT)
REVENGIN Decadent Feeling (Wormholedeath)

Featured Albums w/c 11 November 2024

09:00-12:00 The Best of 2003-2023 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003-2023 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2003-2023 (Singer Songwriter)