'Heaven & Earth' is an American hard rock band that has been around for 25 years and was formed by guitarist 'Stuart Smith' and drummer 'Richie Onori'. They are releasing, as the name of the album indicates, their 5th studio recording and the line-up has constantly changed over the last 10 years and 'Stuart Smith' is now surrounded by singer 'Gianluca Petralia', bassist 'Lynn Sorensen', keyboardist 'George Barabas' and drummer 'Simon Wright' who officiated with the most famous band in the land of kangaroos, I've named 'AC/DC'. This new 12-track album takes us on a hard-rock journey back to the 70s and 80s with 'Drive', opening with a catchy melody and Hammond keyboards reminiscent of 'Deep Purple' and 'Beautiful', which follows, is a mid-tempo with a strong rhythm that continues in this style. This parallel can be found throughout the album on tracks such as 'Ship of Fools' with its swaying rhythm or the mid-tempo 'Poverty' with this time the vocals of 'Gianluca Petralia' close to 'Ian Gillan' or the muscular 'Flim Flam Man' with its introduction reminiscent of a certain 'Black Night' or 'Big Money Little Man' with this time a guitar solo that would not have been disowned by 'Ritchie Blackmore'. Apart from this classic and remarkably efficient hard rock, we can note 'Never Dream of Dying' which brings a good dose of progressive, the energetic blues/rock 'Little Black Dress' with its addictive rhythmic or to end the album in beauty the power ballad 'At the End of the Day' which brings us back to 'Deep Purple' and the ambiences of a certain 'When a Blind Man Cries'. In short, there's no need to go overboard, 'Heaven & Earth' takes us back to the golden age of hard rock and if you like bands like 'Deep Purple', 'Whitesnake' or even 'Rainbow', you should without a doubt adopt this fifth album by the Americans... | |
