Melodic rock legends Winger are set to release their sixth studio album in April.
It has also been confirmed the band are to appear alongside other melodic rockers Aerosmith, Red Dragon Cartel and “comic” relief Steel Panther.
Entitled ‘Better Days Comin”, the album reunites original members Kip Winger, Rod Morganstein and Reb Beach (also a longterm member of Whitesnake) with guitarist John Roth for a continuation to the band’s hard rock legacy.
House of Lords’ self-titled debut from 1989 is somewhat of a melodic rock cult classic. The combination of Chuck Wright’s meaty bass work, Lanny Cordolla’s nifty-yet-melodic guitar shredding, Greg Giuffria’s bombastic keyboards and James Christian’s commanding vocals pull together excellently – like listening to a melodic rock supergroup, even though the original project was never conceived as such. Line-up changes for each of their subsequent recordings (1990’s ‘Sahara’ and 1992’s overlooked ‘Demons Down’) meant that the magic was never quite captured in the same way again, but these, nevertheless are enjoyable offerings.
Boston’s self-titled debut album is rightly heralded as a melodic rock classic. The combination of Brad Delp’s soaring voice, a wall of vocal harmonies and the distinctive guitar work of Tom Scholz has allowed the album to (almost) transcend the ages. While it doesn’t necessarily sound timeless, it certainly still sounds like an album recorded some time after its mid-70s origins, such is its sharpness. The band’s next works (1978’s ‘Don’t Look Back’ and 1986’s ‘Third Stage’) are almost as good, thanks to Scholtz and his obsession with perfection. After a long delay, the band returned in the mid 90s for ‘Walk On’, a decent selection of pomp-driven songs with Orion vocalist Fran Cosmo doing a grand job of replacing Brad Delp on vocals. It mightn’t have quite been up there the Boston of ’76, but then it didn’t pretend to be – it was a good enough record in its own way. From this point on, very little was heard from the Boston camp until the release of ‘Corporate America’ (featuring both Delp and Cosmo alongside Sholz) in 2002. It was a record which gathered mixed reviews. Too much time had passed.
Since this debut record from Angelica Rylin pays homage to her childhood heroes Robin Beck and Ann Wilson, it’ll come as no surprise that the album, therefore, ploughs a well-worn furrow of melodic rock. With Frontiers Records regular Daniel Flores handling production duties/drums/song-writing and other regulars Alessandro Del Vecchio and Robert Sall also having a hand in proceedings, the whole thing feels like an all-chums-together affair. There’s nothing wrong with that per se, but obviously the combination of a familiar team and a rigid musical blueprint makes ‘Thrive’ feel wholly predictable. So, given that this album breaks absolutely no new musical ground whatsoever, why should you check out Angelica, when there is so much other rock music out there vying for your attention?
Back in the late 80s/early 90s, White Lion released a couple of great albums in ‘Pride’ and ‘Mane Attraction’. By more modern standards, the production on ‘Pride’ is a tiny bit trebly (okay, maybe a lot trebly), but it had the songs to back up any technical shortcomings. A couple of ‘Mane Attraction’s songs were noticeably weaker – and they even padded out the disc with a re-recording of ‘Broken Heart’ (the original can be found on their 1987 release ‘Fight To Survive), but in many ways, it was a perfect swansong. Vocalist Mike Tramp’s follow up project Freak Of Nature attracted a solid fan base, but the more alternative leanings in the band’s sound turned off some more “traditional” rock fans, leading to decline in record sales. His later solo album ‘Capricorn’ was more than decent, but by this point Tramp’s sales figures were practically non-existent compared to former glories. In that respect, it’s almost understandable as to why by 2008 Frontiers Records would want Tramp to release another White Lion album.