For all of those who don’t have a clue who Jack Blades is and need an introduction, he is the bass player and lead singer in both Night Ranger and Damn Yankees and now he also has a solo career.
He recently released a brilliant albums with his day job Night Ranger and while he’s on tour with them, he managed to put out a solo album as well. Busy guy!
Make no mistake, his full schedule hasn’t affected the quality on his solo music at all. The fact is, this album follows, in many ways the Night Ranger formula pretty closely. Sometimes so much that you wonder why he bothered to make a solo album when lots of the songs here would fit a Night Ranger album perfectly. Maybe he wrote too many songs for their new album and decided to record the leftovers himself. And I mean leftovers in a good way!
Opener ”Back In The Game” is a great, raunchy rocker, the title track is just brilliant and sounds like a mix of Night Ranger and AC/DC, ”Born For This” is a positive melodic rocker with a ”you can do anything you want” type of message, ”Hardest Word To Say” is an amazing power ballad in a
Night Ranger vein and ”Love Life” is best of all. It sounds so much like a Night Ranger song and it could (and should?) have been included on
their latest album. Both ”Don’t Give Up” and ”Rise And Shine” are killer pop-rockers with great choruses, also very Night Ranger sounding.
”Hey Now” is a ballad with a 70’s Rolling Stones feel that finishes the album beautifully.
If you’re into melodic rock / AOR and especially Night Ranger, then don’t think twice about making this album yours. I didn’t.
Jon Wilmenius (8/10)
Tracklist:
01. Back In The Game
02. Rock ‘N’ Roll Ride
03. Born For This
04. Hardest Word To Say
05. Anything For You
06. Love Life
07. West Hollywood
08. Don’t Give Up
09. Say You Will
10. Rise And Shine
11. Hey Now
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