Early September is here, and to end my summer playlist of rock and melodic hard rock albums providing immediate listening pleasure and released in July and August 2022, here is the new project 'A-Z', led by drummer 'Mark Zonder' (among other things to take only recent reviews, 'Shumaun', 'Pentesilea Road' and 'Enzo and the Glory Ensemble') and the singer of 'Fates Warning', 'Ray Alder' (logical, the A of Alder and the Z of Zonder). Joined by 'Philip Bynoe' on bass, 'Joop Wolters' on guitar and 'Vivien Lalu' on keyboards, the duo offers us more direct melodic hard rock for a wider audience than the progressive metal offered in their various respective projects. Although some titles include some more progressive sections, the objective is completely achieved and, from the start, with 'Trial by Fire' sends us good powerful hard rock with a memorable first melody, then, 'The Far Side of the Horizon' is less direct but brings a good dose of progressive. The suite is more accessible with energetic and more fluid titles: 'The Machine Gunner', 'Windows Panes', 'Run Away' or even 'Borrowed Time' attest to this and these titles alternate with more sedate atmospheres such as ballads 'Rise Again', the powerful 'Stranded', 'At the Waters Edge' eyeing towards AOR or even 'Sometimes' alternating ballad and mid-tempo with a very beautiful guitar solo in the second part of the title, the album ending with the bonus track 'The Silence Broken' which sums up well the philosophy of this opus with a catchy rhythm and a simple but very effective melody.
In short, even if the progressive side comes out in small touches, this first album of this new project put together by 'Mark Zonder' and 'Ray Alder' shows a more immediate accessibility than their other respective projects and should appeal to a wide audience. public loving a metal that one appropriates quite quickly... | |
