Jaded Heart - IV

1. Live And Let Die
2. Hey God Don't Hesitate
3. Way Back Home
4. Stonecold
5. When You Hear The Thunder
6. Ain't A Perfect World
7. With Your Eyes
8. But You Like It
9. Take My Soul
10. She's A Woman
11. Behind Your Pride
12. Easy Lover
     

Album Cover:

Total Playing Time: 66:25 m:s

Review date: 05/01/2000

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This album sees the band signed to MTM and they've traveled to Bobby Barth's NEH Studio to record the album and let Bobby do the knob twiddling. As you might expect Jaded Heart have taken on some of the characteristics of GOA/CITA and Axe in the process. The result is a beefy full sound that I get the feeling their previous recordings were lacking. If you like muscular hard rock/AOR with good vocal harmonies then Jaded Heart deserve your attention.

"Live And Let Die" get proceedings off to a cheesy start with a kid's choir at the start of the tune before it develops into a solid mid-tempo rocker. More heavy happenings occur in the form of the Aerosmith influenced "Hey God Don't Hesitate", "When Your Hear The Thunder",  the catchy "Ain't A Perfect World" which all work well. "But I Like It" is a fairly standard slice of Euro-rock that gets rescued by a decent chorus. The heaviest tune is "Take My Soul" which mixes Metallica and CITA. "Behind Your Pride" is the remaining rocker and features a slightly more subtle approach.

On the ballad front there is the power ballad "Way Back Home", the semi-ballad "With Your Eyes" and the blues of "She's A Woman".

That just leaves the two most talked about songs on the album - "Stonecold" and "Easy Lover". These are of covers of the Rainbow and the Phil Collins/Philip Bailey tunes. Jaded Heart have chosen a couple of great tunes to cover. Unfortunately for Jaded Heart the original artists did brilliant versions in the first place and these cover versions end up sounding a bit on the clumsy side. The result is that, instead of being content with the covers, you're left itching to hear the originals.

Don't be put off by what you may have heard about those cover versions, Jaded Heart's own material is worth investigating for those with a liking for hard hitting melodic hard rock/AOR.