Back in 1989 yours truly was a 21 year old kid who had gone completely apeshit over the more melodic Hard Rock that was so popular back then. 1989 was the year when Swedish AOR:sters Bad Habit released their debut album After Hours, an album that today has reached almost iconic status, at least in AOR circles. I clearly remember a good friend of mine, also a sucker for AOR and Melodic Rock, almost speaking in tongues when it came to this album. He made me a cassette copy of the album but even though I was head over heels madly in love with the AOR genre, I found the album way too saccharine for my taste. I just didn’t think it rocked enough and that the songs just weren’t great enough. I still feel that way about the record.
I lost the band after that and it wasn’t until much later that I found out that they kept on releasing music throughout the 90’s – between 1995 – 2010 they released five studio albums, one compilation album and a re-recording of Revolution (1995). The reason I started to look into the band again was their fantastic Atmosphere (2010) album that floored me and made me go back and check their 90’s stuff out. After that, Bad Habit was inactive for years but reunited in 2018 to play some gigs before it was decided that the band – Bex Fehling (vocals), Hal Marabel (guitars, keyboards), Sven Cirnski (guitar), Patrik Sodergren (bass) and Jamie Salazar (drums) – should record a new album. Well, it’s actually a mini album of sorts, only seven new songs with three additional live-tracks.
Opener and the album’s leading single “Retribution” is way heavier than what we’re used to from this lot. It comes in a mid-pace, it’s guitar-driven, the rhythm-section pounds hard and the groove is even headbang-friendly. More classic Hard Rock than AOR, the melodies and vocal-arrangements are very much Bad Habit with a spot-on refrain but this isn’t the least sweet, pink or fluffy – and you know what, it suits them well. Great track. Released separately as a video a year ago, “I Reach For You” is more in the vein of what Bad Habit usually does. It’s a slow, soft and down-beat ballad with big pop-vibes and a nod towards power-balladry. A sweet little number yet with a catchy hook in the refrain. Good one.
“A Place In Your Heart” is poppy and held-back, very much an AOR number on the threshold of being a ballad. It holds a very 80’s contemporary radio-rock sound where the refrain takes a more upbeat yet slick outlook. The main melody here is quite infectious and smooth and the chorus is silky and a bit sugary yet very catchy. Good song. The single “Back To Life” takes the band back to the rough-edged heaviness of the opening track, very much built on classic Hard Rock than AOR but with a slightly smoother Melodic Rock vibe inserted. It’s rhythmic on a beefy bass/drum foundation, it holds a fat riff and on top a mighty chorus that screams hit to these ears. Great stuff.
The mid-paced AOR-number “Love Will Find A Way” is classic Bad Habit all the way. With down-beat rhythms and slick arrangements all over the song brings on a big, late 80’s pop-chorus with a big hook that makes the song go for a catchy as damn home-run. This kinda formula would have worked wonders for the band back in the day and today it comes off as a bit dated but I can’t help digging the song anyway. On a steady, upbeat rhythm “Lost In You” is straight-forward, glossy and slick with saccharine vocal-melodies and a sticky synth-work with keyboards taking up much of the sound-space here. It’s a good song indeed but it’s on the limit of too much cheesiness for me.
Last studio track is the ballad and latest single “Reason To Live” – not a Kiss cover by the way. With acoustic guitars and glossy keyboards, the song comes off as a down-beat pop-number perfect for the last dance. There are some elegant melody arrangements but everything here is so slick, posh and sticky with extra added sugar it almost becomes slimy and just like the Kiss tune with the same name, it’s way too buttery for me so I’ll put a skip-sticker on this one. Then we get three live-tracks – “A Lot To Learn”, “Alive” and “Walk Of Life”. While that might be fun for some, these tracks are badly produced, if produced at all and sounds like bootlegs recorded by the audience. Totally unnecessary in book.
It was 10 years since Bad Habit released an album so why only give us seven new tunes? I mean, they waited 10 years so they could easily have taken some more time to write and record three – four more tracks, right? And why release live-tracks with such poor sound? Why not fix them up and polish them at least a little and give them a facelift? I just don’t get that. Anyway, out of the seven tracks, only one is a throwaway and most of them are really damn good. I also like the heavier approach a couple of them has taken without losing the Bad Habit personal melody – it suits them real well. I hope they got a taste of this again and give us a real full-length album next time around.
6/10
Tracklist:
1. Retribution
2. I Reach For You
3. A Place In Your Heart
4. Back To Life
5. Love Will Find A Way
6. Lost In You
7. Reason To Live
8. A Lot To Learn (live)
9. Alive (live)
10. Walk Of Life (live)
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