Frontiers [Release date 22.11.24]
Crossfire is only the second Storace “solo” release from an artist whose gravel gargling vocals have fronted many million selling albums.
Any fan of the hard rock genre will recognise the talent Marc Storace has surrounded himself with on Crossfire. Tommy (Alice Cooper/ Hollywood Vampires) Henriksen co-writes, produces and plays guitar; Pat (Gotus/ Krokus) Aeby co-writes and plays drums and “Mutt” Lange’s engineer, Olle Romo is behind the mixing desk. Hard Rock’s very own supergroup.
These guys were clearly sparking off each other here.
As you would expect from this amount of talent, all the instruments and songwriting elements are smartly woven together in the construction of a high impact Hard Rock album.
“It’s got big fat tyres and bucket seats”. So it’s not a Humbucker pickup or a display level firework … ‘Screaming Demon’ is a fast and furious, right in your face opener.
‘The New Unity’ is a nice touch. A sinister sounding announcement, a 40 second slice of sci-fi soundscape, segueing into the 4 minute ‘Rock This City’.
Which in turn, echoing poster boys, AC/DC, emanates a real sense of menace, reaching out to the second half of the album, and the equally dark ‘Thrill And A Kiss’.
Even the song title of the memorably melodic, ‘Adrenaline’ tips its hat to Def Leppard. The call-and-response, backing-vocals-as-lead tricks from the Mutt years have been revisited here by Olle Romo.
‘Let’s Get Nuts’ has got some popified blood pumping through its hard rock heart. Like a turbo-charged, turn it up transfusion from Steve Plunkett’s Autograph. But side by side track, ‘Love Thing Stealer’ might be just a little too derivative.
There are echoes of AC/DC’s Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap on ‘We All Need The Money’, a shout out condemning the perpetual grind we endure as we sell our soul to “the man”. It’s the other side of the rock’n’roll coin to ‘Hell Yeah’, a pumped up, bolted to the floor celebration of getting the job done.
‘Sirens’ is probably the song that stands out most here. It’s a lurching, pounding piece of white hot heavy metal. As we know, the sound of sirens can only mean trouble. “Sirens and violence go hand in hand”.
It’s as dark and dangerous as Crossfire gets here, and the album is all the better for it. ***1/2
Review by Brian McGowan
Featured Artist: JOSH TAERK
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Power Plays w/c 9 December 2024
In this sequence we play ‘The Best of 2024′ GRTR! reviewer selections
Featured Albums w/c 9 December 2024
09:00-12:00 The Best of 2024 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003-2024 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2024 (Singer Songwriter)
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