French rock music for some reason or another has never made a dent on the world stage although Gojira in terms of metal have and are leaving an indelible mark on that stage, however just in terms of music you’ll probably come up with Daft Punk who last year absolutely ruled the charts.
Yet, here is Blackrain. A group of French rockers who on appearance take their influence from largely 80’s rock and metal, they have spent 10 years, 10 years honing their craft with 4 self produced albums and a slew of tours with the likes of Europe, Steel Panther and Scorpions to name but a few.
So `Blackrain’s’ album entitled `Released’ is the first contact that I certainly have had with the French quartet and straight out of the gate this is a party rock band with the first track `Back In Town’ setting pretty much the tone for the entire album. It’s extremely bouncy, energetic and has a definite swagger about it.
However for myself and this maybe that variety is the spice of life unless your AC/DC or Motorhead who etched their path many years ago when rock was fresh meat on the party player yet with this effort from ‘Blackrain’ feels very formulaic and not that fist pumping, rebellious and frankly fuck you attitude that Lemmy and his ilk forged.
Each song comes and just feels like the one that’s come before and if you didn’t quite know you’ve just listened to 5 songs that all sound virtually exactly the same. Not much here stands out.
The vocals on the album do however stand out for the wrong reasons, they sound very scratchy and high pitched resulting in irritation all to quickly and it would have been great to see well hear what else this gentleman can conjure up.
Saying that a couple of little glimmers do appear, firstly a couple of the intros add that little bit of spice to those tracks although they pretty quickly fall back into the unchanged formula. There is also a rather tasty solo on `Words Ain’t Enough’ that really does grab you by the dangling chestnuts and makes you think this band could be so much more than a one trick pony.
Overall, I really feel this band could be so much more and offer much more variety in their song writing and even in the world of this 80’s inspired party rock album you can add more than just 13 songs that are all identical barring a few glimmers but ultimately unless they turn potential into reality it feels like `Blackrain’ will be another casualty of what could have been.
Stand out tracks:
‘Back In Town’ and ‘Word’s Ain’t Enough’
4.5/10- A one trick pony, yet hope may remain
Track Listing:
Back In Town
Mind Control
Killing Me
Run Tiger Run
Puppet On A String
Words Ain’t Enough
Eat You Alive
Home
For Your love
Fade To Black
Electric Blue
Rock My Funeral
One Last Prayer
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