Axe - Twenty Years Volume II | ||
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Album Cover: |
Label: MTM Music Producers: Bobby Barth Year: 1999 Total Playing Time: 60:41 mins:secs Review date: 12 Feb 1999 |
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| Rating: 8 | ||
| Verdict: Another sucessful journey back into their past. | ||
| Axe plunder their back catalog yet again. Like Volume I, this also features re-recordings of Axe tunes. This time from "Axe", "Nemesis", "2 Hearts 1 Beat", "Offering" albums, plus a bonus track - "Midnight Drives Me Mad". The motivation behind the project is to get Axe material released on CD. In place of lyrics, the booklet contains a few thoughts by Bobby Barth on the origins of each song. I'm sure many memories were stirred & the band enjoyed re-recording the tunes, but weren't all the best Axe tunes released on Volume I ?
If you read my review of Volume I, you'll see that I was a bit disappointed by what I heard. Possibly because the album didn't quite gel together for me, with a few tunes stealing the limelight leaving the others sounding lacklustre. I'll have to confess that I haven't gone back to listen to Volume I before writing this review, but I seem to be enjoying this more. That might seem a bit curious. Axe haven't changed their style or anything like that. It just seems to be a more coherent sounding album. As for how the new recordings compare to the old ones, I can't say because I've never heard the originals. Back when Axe originally released these albums, we'd probably described them as Hard Rock. Now we all seem intent on pigeonholing acts & describing their sound in depth. Add the word melodic and let's describe them as Melodic Hard Rock. Needless to say an 80s vibe pervades. Axe excels on the mid-tempo rockers. My favourite couple of tunes come from this category. Those guys in CITA/GOA are smart cookies, because they covered both on their "Relapse Of Reason" album. "Steal Another Fantasy" and "Silent Soldiers" are both prime examples of big riffs and lots of melody. "Young Hearts" has bit more pace, but still works well. "Dangerous Games" has a nice vocal into, before it launches into more high-octane melody. Quite possibly it is the most immediate tune and the most memorable on first listen. Axe's weakest moments come on the fast 'n' furious numbers. Tracks like "Midnight Drives Me Mad" & "Holdin On" fail to impress. The best uptempo track on offer is "Carry On". On the slower side of things you've got "I Don't Want To Be Alone Tonight" & "Masquerade". Masquerade does build up & finishes off the album well. Tracks with girls names on them are invariably ballads, but "Jennifer" breaks the rules. So Velocity weren't the first band to write a tune about a porn star. Maybe it's got more to do with expectations than anything else, but I reckon this is a better album than Volume I. It might not have the same number of outstanding tracks, but it is a more consistent listening experience. | ||
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