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Global Rock [Release date : 19.08.22]
There’s a thin line between pretension and serious minded rock’n'roll. Lillian Axe do a high wire balancing act on this, their first album for ten years, titled From Womb To Tomb.
Mainman, songwriter, guitarist, Steve Blaze, never was an artist who subscribed to the sex and drugs, love gone right/wrong canon of song writing. Even in the early days, he and his band tried hard to transcend the pop metal conventions of the time, looking to provide a cultured alternative to the cool indifference of the MTV age.
As its title indicates, the album is a journey from the cradle to the grave.
The songs that result range from the portentous to the truly insightful. Blaze ramps up the dramatic lyrical and musical intensity as the album progresses, only occasionally breaking out into more familiar metal territory.
Opener, ‘Breathe’ is a deep incursion into Saigon Kick’s domain. That single word title is sung repeatedly through the song while Blaze’s measured axework sings and stings over the top. It has elegant contours, a sense of renewal, yet it is also robust and thunderous.
It’s clearly designed to tell us in which direction the album will go.
Lyrically, the songs are a hard sell at times, but musically they are alternately subtle, intricate, dramatic and in places, boldly experimental. From the eastern flavoured, trance metal promise of ‘I Am Beyond’, to the whispering, wailing ‘Piercing The Veil’; from the doom laden ‘Migrating North’ to the mechanical, finely wrought heavy metal of ‘Fall Of The Human Condition’.
There’s a couple of key tracks that act as pivots for the rest. Symbolism aside, ‘The Golden Dragon’, is one of those songs. Its dark notes, its breathless changes of pace are all eventually hauled up into a powerfully surging chorus, closed out by a hymn like crescendo of voices.
“Dance of the Maggots” is the other. Forget the almost impenetrable lyrics. The arrangements, the production and the melody all add up to an eminently satisfying, cohesive whole. Yes, and perhaps understandably, there’s a deliberate religious intensity at play, which may not suit all palates.
As a piece of hard rock music then, it certainly isn’t lacking narrative ambition. But ultimately, it’s Blaze’s way with a melody and an arrangement that leaves its mark on your memory. ***1/2
(Watch out for Lillian Axe’s 7 date tour of the UK, 22- 28 August 22)
Review by Brian McGowan
Album review (Psalms For Eternity, 2022)
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