Lion Music 2013
Growing Apart
Back from the limbo, with international crew on-board, Italian axemen deliver a record for no-one.
Active in the ’90s, with one album under their belt, this band lay on ice between 2000 and 2011, when Walter Cianciusi and Dario Parente unsheathed their weapons and crossed them again to fully live up to their name. It’s a powerfully disorientating creation that, despite the stellar performances from famous Swedish belter Göran Edman and QUEENSRŸCHE skin-kicker Scott Rockenfield, flips through hard rock and metal pages with a cliché-piling velocity. One minute, the quartet wear an IRON MAIDEN mask (“Primetime”), the other they shift towards WHITESNAKE’s bluesy drive (“Nero Fantasies”) before moisturing the METALLICA-patented clamor (“Be Myself”). To latch onto the main men’s mastery in such a mixed bag proves difficult.
“The Backstabbers Around Us” and opener “God Of Sorrow And Grief” sound commercially promising in AOR way, and ballad “Calf Love” rides a pop train in its harmonic backdrop which makes it stand out, whereas the title track tries to tie dance groove to its riffs and make the result palatable. The point of closing it all with a rather unimaginative cover of “As Tears Go By” remains elusive, though, the title of the hollow rage that is “No Happy Ending” hinting at the fact that the lack of direction was the plan from the off. On these terms, it’s a success – if one’s willing to lose their head.
**1/3
