H.E.A.T.

Tearing down the Walls

Written by: BW on 14/02/2014 00:43:49

When you first listen to H.E.A.T. you think to yourself that you’ve been transported back to the late 80’s and that power perms, almost nuclear pink pop socks and mobile phones the size of Italy are still in fashion. To say that they are in the style of pop rock would be a massive understatement, as their previous albums testify. This is a look at their new release “Tearing down the Walls” and it certainly has less of the cheese than some of those albums that have went before it, but does it have enough “GUITAAAAAAAAARRRR!!!” to cut it?

“Point of No Return” starts things off promisingly with a good blend of vocal work and tight instruments. It does everything you would want a melodic rock song to do and certainly ticks all the right boxes. The same can be said with “A Shot at Redemption” as it has that anthem styled tempo and you can have images in your head of people singing the chorus with arms round friends and smiles aplenty.

What I like with the album is that is sort of covers every aspect of good old fashioned rock from the 80’s and 90’s and it does delve into the ‘Steel Panther’ mindset on occasion, albeit not quite as vulgar. A few obscenities and the mention of masturbation are included in “Inferno” just to show that there is bit of kick to their way of playing. There’s a smooth chorus line and a catchy beat to it also.

I might get lynched for saying it, but the title track has such a smell of Bon Jovi about it that you could almost smell a lawsuit, thinking the song had been stolen in a midnight raid involving spandex and hairspray. It isn’t to say it is a bad song, not at all, but it fits the great man’s ballad style so much that it is hard to get away from.

Highlight track for me would be “Mannequin Show” as it adds a little more to the normal mix than is expected. Some pizzicato strings, albeit through the keyboard, work well to ruffle the feathers at they start to make the easing into the beat more comfortable and enjoyable. As this album cracks on you begin to realise that as much as its heart is based in an older area of rock, you cannot fault that the actual songs are very catchy and thoroughly enjoyable and that is the key thing here.

One other track to keep an eye out for is “All the Nights” as it has no guitar in it, but proves that when a different pace and tact to a song is placed in an album, it can work very well if done correctly. You could almost think of it as an intermission before the big finale, but the only downside here is that the actual end of the album is a little bit lacking in the big hit department and I do feel that “Laughing at Tomorrow” should have maybe been put elsewhere in the album to allow the big hitters to let the record go out with a bang.

Some would think that this is a genre of a bygone era that doesn’t need a place in modern rock. I would disagree wholeheartedly. We NEED bands like H.E.A.T. to keep the flame burning and to show that on a good day, the lovely warm and fuzzy feeling of vintage rock can warm even the coldest of hearts and nights. “Tearing Down the Walls” is a good album and it does what you want it to pretty well, albeit with a filler or two in there, but for the most part, I think it’s worth a listen should you need a relief from ‘Whitesnake-itis’ or ‘Foreigner Fever’. It is quintessentially old rock done very well.

8

Download: Inferno, All the Nights, Mannequin Show, Point of No Return
For The Fans Of: Steel Panther, Whitesnake, Def Leppard, Airbourne
Listen: facebook.com

Release Date 09.04.2014
Gain Music

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