'James Durbin' is a young American singer and guitarist who was known on the show 'American Idol' and who started releasing solo albums from 2011 with 'Memories of a Beautiful Disaster', three more albums followed and the last one 'Homeland' date of 2018. To this we can add that he was the singer of 'Quiet Riot' on their last two studio albums. But unlike his last solo album 'Homeland' which was mainly acoustic in which he returned to the sources of American song, this latest album 'The Beast Awakens' from his new project 'Durbin' is well turned towards heavy metal and, for the occasion, he is accompanied by 'Barry Sparks' on bass, 'Mike Vanderhule' on drums and has invited American artists within this case no less than eight guitarists. We are therefore embarked on an hour of good heavy metal which takes us back to the 80s and which is shared between a majority of energetic compositions with muscular guitar riffs such as 'The Prince of Metal', 'Kings Before You', 'The Beast Awakens', 'Calling Out For Midnight' and 'Rise to Vahalla' but also other titles between rock and melodic hard-rock like 'Into The Flames', 'Evil Eye', 'Necromancer' or even the catchy 'By the Hornes'. Other compositions more mid-tempo while remaining powerful like 'The Sacred Mountain' or 'Riders on the Wind' allow to vary the atmospheres and the ballad, very beautiful, is not forgotten with 'Battle Cry'.
In summary, even if it is not going to revolutionize metal, 'James Durbin' is releasing a quality album which offers us a series of compositions all as addictive as each other and 'The Beast Awakens' should please to a heavy metal loving audience that takes us back decades ... | |
