Reviews: L.A Guns, Mecca, Smackbound, Neil Howell (Reviews By Rich Piva & Matt Bladen)

L.A. Guns - Black Diamonds (Frontiers Music Srl) [Rich Piva]

I have been a decades-long fan of L.A. Guns starting when I first saw the video for Never Enough, which blew me away. Of course, I went back and grabbed the first album (cassette for me at the time) and I was hooked. Hollywood Vampires was the record for me that took my fandom to the next level, even though it was not as beloved by fans as much as it was for me at the time. 

The Vampires record to me was the peak of the band’s creativity and want to experiment a bit with their sound and I always craved to hear more material in that vein, given how talent Tracii and the rest of the band are. Well, here we are at album seventeen (I think this number may be debatable but let’s go with it…) and the quality of the music is right up there with much of their back catalog with the latest, Black Diamonds. There is a uniqueness to several the tracks and some different directions that make this the most exciting Guns album in a very long time, and I am totally here for it.

Kicking us off, You Betray is their best single of the past three decades by far, and to me harkens back to that Vampires sound I touched upon. A bit darker, maybe even a pseudo goth vibe lurks about, it is an absolute banger and the perfect way to bring the listener in to Black Diamonds. Wrong About You keeps up the quality and the darker feel for this record (it may be the production, which seems more sparce and open, which is a good thing) and is a good L.A. Guns track in 1993 or 2023. Diamonds is where we get down to real business. Every album from a band of a certain scene and time needs a killer ballad, and exhibit A is Diamonds. This would have been huge back in the day, but I am afraid some producer would have polished the shit out of it and ruined it because it is pretty perfect the way it is. 

This goes back to the production. If you read anything I write, you know I want every band to dial it back some on their production (many times dial it back a lot) but maybe Phil, Tracii, and Ace do read this blog because there is nothing too much here. There are so many bands from the late 80s early 90s scene making music today that find they need to make the slickest record of their career and most of the time it just doesn’t work. Black Diamonds is the opposite. 

Tracks like Babylon and Shame are perfect examples; classic L.A. Guns style tracks that sound organic and not lab grown. Shame is another one that could be a Vampires outtake. Shattered Glass with its call back chorus and catchy rhythm is one of my favorite tracks on the album (that solo) and Gonna Lose has some pretty sweet Zeppelin worship. There is not a ton of filler on Black Diamonds, with catchy rockers like Got It Wrong and Lowlife, the fun Crying, and the outstanding closer which reminds me of when they closed Cocked And Loaded with I Wanna Be Your Man. 

In a week that has a number of 80s-90s metal/rock bands releasing good to excellent albums, L.A. Guns manages to fall right into that range with Black Diamonds.  I had a lot of expectations for this record given the strength of the singles and I was not disappointed at all. It is always hit and miss with bands of a certain time releasing new music, but we have a winner here. Great songs that will translate well live, especially with the talented players in the band, I hope Tracii and crew keep this quality level going for years to come. 8/10

Mecca - Everlasting (Frontiers Music Srl) [Matt Bladen]

The band created by Jim Peterik’s (Survivor) in-house demo singer Joe Vana. This collaboration led to Project Voyager which morphed into Mecca in 2002. After a nine year hiatus they returned in 2011 with a new album then another in 2016, Everlasting being their fourth slice of AOR/Melodic rock that comes from the world of Survivor, Toto et al, where AOR gets to be a bit harder than, but still as slick as a seal covered in crude oil. Doing away with the members who have been a part of the last two albums, Everlasting features a mainly Italian in house team from Frontiers, Alessandro Del Vecchio on keys/production, but Tommy Denander, Vivien Lalu and a few others add extra keys. Which of course is prime Toto with as many keys as possible. 

It’s no wonder that Steve Lukather who appeared on the previous album had nothing but glowing words to say about Mecca. It’s hard to disagree as Joe’s vocals are superb on the emotional I Won’t Walk Away and the epic These Times Are For Heroes which has a narrative of Styx and the riffy guitars to match, speaking of guitars they drive the tough Your Walls Are Crumbling Down. Showing that Mecca just aren’t all about slick keyboards, they are still a ‘rock’ band in the melodic rock genre. With more than 20 years on the scene, Mecca could easily be Everlasting, and if they had been 30 years earlier they could have been colossal. 8/10

Smackbound – Hostage (Frontiers Music Srl) [Matt Bladen]

 
Smackbound was founded when long term special guest vocalist Netta Laurnne had been featured on numerous albums from bands such as Amorphis and Lordi, but wanted to start her own, finding some musicians in the saturated Finnish scene, they started a covers band with the intention of writing their own material too. This performance experience proved invaluable when they evolved into Smackbound and produced their debut album 20/20, the slow build of singles and unity between the members after the touring, meant 20/20 sounded like a band who had been together for decades, it got them recognised as ones to watch in the Finnish scene, Laurnne going on to do a collab album with Noora Louhimo further impressing with her vocal prowess. 

So now Smackbound are back, older, wiser and more focussed with a fresh set of expansives tracks that put a metallic edge on melodic hard rock, the dramatic The Edge closing the album with atmospherics, while the opener Reap feels like the classic styel of Within Temptation or Evanescence, Razor Sharp fast and thrashy,  then shifting to some Eurovision level choruses on Change. Netta's vocals are variable and powerful easily handling the orchestral Rodrigo and the piano led Imperfect Day and everything in between. That everything inbetween being where Smackbound's sound lays a mix of styles all done well but somewhat lacking coherence of what they want to be. However Hostage features some high quality metallic hard rock from band on an upward trajectory. 8/10   

Neil Howell - The Wasteland (Self Released) [Rich Piva]

I had not heard of Neil Howell until I grabbed the promo from the “to be reviewed” folder a few days ago and began to do some research.  The prolific solo artist from Missouri has put out a bunch of stuff over the past few years, playing all the instruments and leveraging styles all over the musical map. That about sums up his latest release, The Wasteland, which goes in several stylistic directions (sometimes in the same song) with mostly very positive results, but occasionally a little too scattered.

With The Wasteland you have a serious black metal ripper with Clairvoyant, except for the short jazz interludes. You have a bluesy stoner number with the opening track, Welcome To The Desert, which is great. You get a more metal, with clean and not so clean vocals with The Cruelest Month, as well a singer/songwriter acoustic track sandwiched in between the heavy with Handful of Dust. You get and alt rock ballad with Winter Dawn into a grunge inspired stop and start, loud quite track with Nothing (and those black metal vocals return). 

Hurry Up shows how Howell can really play his guitar and is a fast heavy thrash banger that is my favorite track on the album. Give me ten of those in that style and I will be all over it, because transitioning this track to Unreal City gives me a headache. I would have left Unreal City out and moved right into the instrumental banger Entering The Whirlpool for a much better transition and vibe, where Howell really shows off his guitar chops. But another weird transition from there to another acoustic number, With Like Patience once again has my head spinning.

Taken track by track, there are some good songs on here. But as an album, there is nothing cohesive about these songs, as they sound like ideas that were thrown together after sessions that he laid down after listening to his favorite bands on shuffle. I am not a fan of the production either, as it sounds a bit lab created, especially the drums. But Howell is certainly talented, can really play his guitar, and has some cool ideas.  I would just love to see some focus, taking the best of the ideas in a certain style and giving us something more related from track to track. Give me 8-10 Hurry Ups and see what that takes us, maybe next time. 5/10