Di'Anno

I have a very hard time calling this piece of art metal. It has distorted guitars but not much. There is more piano in this music then there is guitars. I wonder if this is the same Di'Anno from Iron Maiden? If it is, then Di'Anno surely has lost his touch for metal. The best band I could compare this with is John Cougar Mellencamp meets Journey, yeah it's that scarry!

The production isn't the greatest. The first song that busts out is Flaming Heart, which right away you can hear the pretty crappy production. It almost sounds like it was recorded in 1970. Flaming Heart isn't really a bad song, but it's just not metal, and most definetly not Iron Maiden sounding. The riffs are chessy, the distortion guitars and solo (not much), the piano and symphonics are way overdone. Almost sounds like a video game at certain points in the song.

The whole album comes out in this fashion. Not many good guitar riffs. Some of the good riffs and solo's are: solo to Road Rat and main riff of Razor Edge (the only real song that is really good on this album). The piano rules this album with an iron fist. Meaning there is way to much piano. And I am not talking about Symphony X keyboards, I am talking about Elton John type rock n roll piano playing. The singing isn't as great as I thought it would be. Paul Di'Anno doesn't cut it off with his ruff cut vocal tone that was present on Iron Maiden's Killer album. This vocal tone hardly moves, and doesn't have the rough edge cut. An example of his vocals are on the song Tales of the Unexpected which reminds me of some tv show anthem. Very girly like, and definetly not cut throat range.

This isn't a bad album at all, if it were mentioned as a pop rock album. There are only three decent songs on this album: Razor Edge, Here To Stay, and Flaming Heart. Everything else is decent if you like pop rock, or very soft rock n roll. Not heavy metal, not Iron Maiden, Di'Anno lost his touch for metal on this album!