Album review : BANGALORE CHOIR – Center Mass

Global Rock Records [Release date: 07.07.23]

David Reece claims that David Coverdale had Bangalore Choir removed from the support spot on Whitesnake’s European tour in 1989, because he didn’t want to compete with Reece’s voice.

The story may well be apocryphal, but it’s got a nice ring to it.

So, here we are in 2023, with Center Mass. Only the band’s third album since 1992’s Moving Target, and it’s a veritable kaleidoscope of robustly constructed melodies and muscular vocals, all placed within a guitar driven, heavyweight rock framework.

It comes with a bonus disc of live material, taken from the band’s sold out Hamburg gig in 2022.

Joining Reece is the Italian studio team: Nicolo Savinelli on guitar; drummer Giovanni Salvinelli ,with producer, Riccardo DeMarosi also contributing bass and keyboards.

Cowrites with Martin (Gypsy Rose/Phenomena) Kronlund, Mikael (Last Autumn’s Dream) Erlandsson, Jimi (House Of Lords/Autograph) Bell and Mario (Axe/Mitch Malloy band) Percudani ensure the calibre of material remains high.

It’s clearly a tight, tight studio unit with Reece and Savinelli particularly sparking off each other, each the other’s musical catalyst.

The listless opening track ‘Spirit…’ doesn’t augur well for the rest of the album, then ‘Back To Life’ gets right up in our face. It sounds like two different songs that have been cleverly grafted together, done so that you cannot see the joins.

It works a treat, Savinelli’s axework is phenomenal, not in the fret melting, note blurring sense, but in the tough, hard edged, melodic sense. A perfect match for Reece’s scorched voice and world weary persona.

In what was once melodic rock tradition, track 3 is a ballad. ‘I Just Wanna Love You’ is an ambitious set piece, a superb, heart rending ballad, sketched around a soulful piano, with Reece’s achingly eloquent vocals reaching parts that others just can’t get near.

Elsewhere, the standard is almost as high, ‘Heat Of The Night’ and ‘Without You’ are compact, unassuming melodic rock songs with naggingly familiar riffs and infuriatingly catchy tunes.

‘Back To You’ and ‘Wind At My Back’ are grittier slices of melodic rock.

There’s an undoubted sensuality to the music, an unavoidable earthiness, where the familiar intensity and warmth in Reece’s voice is counterpointed by Savinelli’s taut, muscular axework.

As comebacks go, this is a good ‘un. ****1/2

Review by Brian McGowan

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Power Plays w/c 9 December 2024

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