Album review : CASANDRA’s CROSSING – Garden Of Earthly Delights

Frontiers [Release date: 25.10.24]

George is back. Has he ever been away?

George Lynch, ex-too many to mention, returns in tandem with up and coming vocalist/songwriter, Casandra Carson. Their debut is called Garden Of Earthly Delights … the cover art is a neat play on the original Bosch painting.

Our most recent encounter with Lynch was his outing with Joe Haze and Devix AKA, in The Banishment. The trio’s music, hard rock electronica with an industrial art aesthetic, was a bracing deep dive into the world of Wax Trax and pro-musician creativity.

Having apparently discarded the limiting strictures of post nineties hard rock, and setting aside his innate discipline and skill as a guitarist, Lynch writes and plays with carefully channeled abandon on this new recording.

There’s an abundance of richly melodic twists and ear-catching hooks here, with the album’s standout, ‘Impatient’ coming early. It has shades and echoes of Lynch Mob, imagining Ann (Heart) Wilson on vocals, driven relentlessy by a fabulously inventive arrangement and production.

The clanging soundtrack is punctuated by 60 seconds of feverish soloing from Lynch, turning the song into a 5 minute hard rock mini-masterpiece.

If there is a such a thing now as FM Radio Rock, then ‘Closer To Heaven’ is it, a slickly layered hard rock song with a significantly textured chorus.

Lynch and Carson are totally at one here, a symbiotic team, sparking lightning, firing up an unstoppable rolling momentum that carries us through the sobering power of ‘Devastating Times’, the joyous ‘Waltzing Nites’ and the grinding ‘Just Business’.

They don’t exactly pull up sharp at ‘Mind Eraser’, it’s just that the song threatens some rock psychedelia before losing its nerve.

And so they take off again at warp speed with ‘Run For Your Life’.

The duo’s energy and intensity can be exhausting at times, maybe even bad for your health.

But take the risk. It’s worth it. ****

Review by Brian McGowan

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DOCTOR BLACK Drag Me Down (indie)
COHEED AND CAMBRIA Goodbye Sunshine (Virgin Music Group)
LEONI JANE KENNEDY Closer (indie)
SMALL TOWN POLITICS Red Lights (indie)

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14:00-16:00 The Best of 2003 – 2024 (Singer Songwriter)

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