The Hard Place #7
Ever since big-haired hard rock was criminalised in the spring of 1993, those with a medical dependency on the genre have found it increasingly difficult to know where to turn. Thankfully, for these broken and desperate souls there is finally a sanctuary. No longer must they endlessly search for misfiled contraband in the planet’s fourteen remaining record shops. No longer do they need to be sat in front of eBay, fruitlessly entering euphemistic search terms like “perm noise” in the hope that they might score a forbidden fix. No longer. These unfortunate creatures – perhaps you are one of them – now have a refuge and that refuge is The Hard Place. Welcome, friend. Here, finally, you are understood. Everything you are about to sample is pure rock of the highest quality. And, best of all, it’s all legal.
Cooking up in a kitchen somewhere in Gothenburg is Seventh Crystal, with their highly addictive new single ‘Say What You Need To Say’. The track is taken from the band’s upcoming debut album, Delirium, which is set for a May release via Frontiers. Sweden is arguably the epicentre of the modern melodic rock sound and Seventh Crystal ooze the class for which their nation is renowned. Alongside standard rock riffage and muscular vocals, this song has those key ingredients so often missing from the genre, namely light, shade and space to breathe. Soft, orchestral keyboard stabs underpin an airy verse and a rapid-fire guitar solo is prefaced with an inspired Toto-eqsue instrumental section. To top it all, in an act of moral messaging, the track’s accompanying video highlights the notorious perils of overdosing on speaker cable. Coil responsibly, people, then everyone stays safe.
We stay in Sweden to acquaint ourselves with yet another new signing from the Frontiers label, Infinite & Divine, whose excellent new single of the same name is taken from their debut album, Silver Lining, due in April. Strictly speaking a duo, Infinite & Divine comprise vocalist Tezzi (aka Terese Persson) and producer/guitarist Jan Åkesson. The project is a marked departure from the latter’s work with banshee metallers StoneLake, and a promising new home for the previously itinerant Persson. Emerging from the weighty guitars of the single’s verse is a melody-stuffed chorus of which Robin Beck would be proud, with a heavy dusting of AOR keys. That, my friends, is the good stuff.
Crown Lands photo credit: Lane Dorsey
Now, if you’ve ever had to heave a double-necked Rickenbacker in a flight case across a post-apocalyptic desert in search of a lost drum key, then Crown Lands are certain to be a band to whom you can relate. Owing an incalculable debt to Rush and a good few quid to Led Zeppelin, the Canadian duo’s sound is a beautifully authentic and pleasing homage. The Juno-nominated act’s latest epic, ‘Context: Fearless Pt. 1’, boasts an extremely lavish video that is a far-out trip in more ways than one (watch it now, thank me later) which I imagine also puts Crown Lands in the hole with Universal Music to the tune of a tidy sum. Owing money all over town is, of course, one of the eleven Hard Place Ways of Being and we believe that whatever this little chunk of cinematic indulgence cost, it was worth double and makes a firm case for opulent budgets to return to rock. To feed your habit on such flamboyance is, indeed, to live like a king.
For an unparalleled come-down experience we must take you now to the Netherlands where seasoned guitarist Edwin in ‘t Veld (or ED to his mates) has recently released his debut album, Evolved. A mostly instrumental affair, Evolved is a particularly sublime way to play out this instalment of the Hard Place. If you love nothing more than to dip your toes into the cool waters of some west coast fusion every once in a while, then ED will really appeal. If you wish Neil Zaza had had a chance to record with Toto (that day Steve Lukather had to go to the dentist) it ticks that box too. Naturally, it’s a noodle-fest but, crucially, Edwin’s wonderfully melodic playing never once descends into frenzies of shred. The album’s production, which harks back to the early 80s west coast sound (or Yacht Rock as it is now called), is as exquisite as the chops therein and if you’re enjoying current rising stars in the field like Lari Basilio, Martin & Garp and Young Gun Silver Fox, then this record is a fix you can’t do without.
So, until we meet again, we must retreat into the shadowy underworld whence we came. Just remember this: if you really must do the hard stuff (and you really must), do it here, at the Hard Place.
The Hard Place is a Rich Barnard production for Red Guitar Music.
You have reached The Hard Place. A place where the hair is just a shade more voluminous. A place where the trousers are, on average, two belt holes tighter. A place wherein it is perfectly normal for guitars to begin spontaneously spewing fireworks. Or lightning. Or both. We bring you the choicest, freshest cuts of retro-metal on offer. And, in a scene where wrongness so often prevails, The Hard Place offers a distillation of all that is currently right with the world of melodic hard rock. Quite a lot of it is, as you might expect, from Sweden.