As expected the new solo album from Alice Cooper guitarist opens with an instrumental that is high on the shred factor. She does this with melody and it sounds like it could conceivably still be a song rather than take you on a mind-bender of high-speed picking. It works for what it is, but I am not sure I could listen to an entire album of this sort of thing, which is why she brought along a small army of guest vocalists. Alisa Gluz lends her voice to "the Wolf You Feed" , the chorus follows into color by number modern metal that makes it feel it could be the opening theme of an anime show. So perhaps not dark enough for my personal tastes, but effective for what it is.
Chris Motionless follows the next logical progression in the tour of whos who is the metal vocalist of the Millennium. The chorus is anthemic in a way that feels brighter than what Motionless in White does. He goes into his normal melodramatic crooning. It's hooky enough and checks off all the boxes you might think it should. Of course in keeping with my statement regarding metal vocalists of the millennium the next entry would be Lizzy Hale. She makes a better showing than the previous vocalists and brings more of who she is to the song. She sells it better, making this the best song so far. Then another instrumental "Consume the Fire" emerges. The sense of melody in Strauss' playing remains her strength.
Dave Drainman is the first singer whose roots go back to the 90s. His song was the lead single from the album. He sings on anything and it is going sound like Disturbed . Strauss' tone is not as beefy as Disturbed's. I am going to of course weigh this song against Disturbed, as how can you not. Solo on this song is tasteful and she has learned a great deal playing with Alice regarding serving the song. Dorothy Martin sings on "Victorious" , which plays more to the arena rock side of things. I think what this album show cases best is how Nita adapts what she does to different styles while retaining who she is as a player.
The most melodic instrumental of the three to appear so far is "Scorched" carries it self with the kind of melody that makes you to forget that you are waiting for where the vocals were supposed to come in. "Momentum" is the heaviest of the instrumentals so far with more weight in it's chug. Anders Friden takes the mic on "the Golden Trail" which sounds not unlike In Flames, so I guess if you like In Flames this song will be up your alley, I am pretty neutral on them so that is how I feel about the song. Alice Cooper does fine with "Winner Takes All" which makes me hope Nita will play a more active role in writing for his next album to get it out of the more roots garage rock direction he has been in and head him into more anthemic hard rock like this.
Lilith Czar does pop metal, in the vein of most female-fronted acts these days. "Kintsugi" is a more soulful instrumental, that sheds a better light on Nita's playing. The last song "Surfacing" is another instrumental that is on the slower more reflective side but this time she is accompanied by Marty Friedman" , it does build into more of a Megadeth-like feel. Overall I think this album does an ample job of showing who she is as a guitarist, I will give it a 9.
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