Metal Thrashing Mad – Axel Rudi Pell vs. Nashville Pussy vs. Berggren Kerslake Band

Metal Thrashing Mad – Axel Rudi Pell vs. Nashville Pussy vs. Berggren Kerslake Band
AXEL RUDI PELL
Into The Storm
Steamhammer / SPV

Album number 212 from Axel Rudi Pell, and you won’t be surprised to learn that it’s an album of Euro power metal. Because that’s what he does. And he does it very well. He’s been doing his Blackmore / Malmsteen schtick for more years than either of us care to remember, and if that is what floats your boat, then you’re going to like this.

I wouldn’t say it was a great Axel album, but it’s certainly in the top division, and sees the arrival of former Rainbow (natch), Black Sabbath and Blue Oyster Cult drummer Bobby Rondinelli, to bolster his dynamic sound. Musically, it’s the usual mix of pounding rock songs, the odd turn into the world of power ballad, and the obligatory epic. It’s chock full of cracking riffs, and with a few anthemic choruses thrown in for good measure, it’s business as usual.

The highlights include the rocktastic ‘Long Way To Go, the more melodic ‘Touching Heaven’ and the closing ten minute epic that is the title track. The one real duffer is the Neil Young tune ‘Hey Hey My My’, a song that should be takend and ritually burned. That aside, it’s a welcome addition to his lengthy catalogue.

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NASHVILLE PUSSY
Up The Dosage
Steamhammer / SPV

I thought they were dead! But no, the ever delightful Nashville Pussy are back, after five years, with an album that guitarist and singer Blaine Cartwright claims is “the band’s ‘Back In Black’”. Which is some claim.

It would appear to be so much hyperbole, because it is actually “just” another Nashville Pussy album. However, I say “just”, when in actual fact a Nashville Pussy album is always a wonder to behear. As always, there is another new bass player, with Karen Cuda having been replaced back in 2011 by Bonnie Buitrago, but apart from that, it’s business as usual.

If anything, they’ve actually upped the dose of Southern Rock, which is a very good thing in my book, with tunes like the title track and ‘Till The Meat Falls Off The Bone’ about as southern as a very southern thing having a dose of the southerns. Elsewhere, they throw in a few more country influences on the splendidly titled ‘Hooray For Cocaine, Hooray For Tennessee’. “Back In Black”? No. Just a thunderingly good Nashville Pussy album

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BERGGREN KERSLAKE BAND
The Sun Has Gone Hazy
AOR Heaven

Hot on the heels of the “Walk Tall” EP (the five tracks from which appear here), it’s a big welcome back to onetime Uriah Heep drummer Lee Kerslake and former Company of Snakes singer Stefan Berggren. It’s especially nice to hear from Kerslake since his retirement from Heep a few years back on health grounds.

And what have they come up with. Well, they’ve decided to go for a hip-hop / grime beat that is straight out of the 2003 club scene. No, that’s a lie. They put those tracks to one side, and decided to make a heavy rock album straight out of 1975. As it should be. Yes, it follows a straight line from Uriah Heep through some seventies blues rockers and ignores everything that has happened since. So, a small round of applause for that.

And there are some cracking tunes here, which would have sat happily on many a seventies album. Granted, they might have ended up as the B-sides, rather than being album openers, but you’ve got to grab what you can nowadays, so I’m opening my arms to the likes of ‘Super Sonic Dream’, ‘Fools Asleep’ and ‘As Time Goes By’. There is also some nice keyboard work on moog and organ from a guesting Joakim Svalberg (Opeth, Yngwie Malmsteen) and with Berggren still in fine voice, this ended up a real treat.

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Some vintage Uriah Heep!