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Frontiers [Release date 09.06.23]
Gardner James is Justin James, who has worked with Staind and Tyketto. And Janet Gardner, who was of course vocalist with Vixen. Their history is well documented online.
A pithy rock band riff can be just about heard through the vinyl crackles and scratches on the intro of ‘I’m Living Free’, the album’s opening track and style marker.
It places this album immediately in the past.
Gardner’s grainy, lived in vocals ride in on waves of macho, multi voiced backing vocals, adding weight to our first impressions.
And so No Strings goes on to confirm itself to be a gritty, bluesy hard rock album, with most songs chasing a riff. Producer/ writer/ guitarist James makes the most out of a limited budget.
His studiocraft on songs like ‘Turn The Page’, using a beefy, cleancut riff, reminiscent of Von Groove’s always melodic approach to hard rock, and ‘85’, again punctuated by heavy riffs and bgvs that drop in and out of the mix, is impressive.
Interestingly,‘85’ is as much Gardner’s bio as it is a rock song, recounting those early years on the LA circuit, as Vixen held on by their fingernails, before the breakthrough in 1987.
Like ‘Don’t Turn Me Away’, ‘I’m Not Sorry’ and ‘Set Me Free’, the sound that James has created here is very much of that era, the verses might be a little unfocused, but each song bridges to a memorably melodic hard rock chorus. His production does a lot with a little, creating 3D musical imagery – especially on the bluesy, country rocking title track – from almost nothing at all. ***
PS. Cool artwork
Review by Brian McGowan
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