For those of you who don’t know Adrenaline
Mob...why the hell not? They are a super group featuring former Dream
Theater and Avenged Sevenfold drummer Mike Portnoy, as well
as Symphony X vocalist Russell Allen. Along with them is Disturbed
bassist John Moyer and guitar virtuoso Mike Orlando. Metal fans
who recognize the names Mike Portnoy and Russell Allen might
think that this is going to be another progressive, complex metal band that
only a mathematical genius can get in to. If you think that, then you are
wrong. Adrenaline Mob takes Mike and Russell out of their
usual element of progressive metal gods and instead the band is more of a
straight up heavy metal band; one unlike any current metal band out there. If
you haven’t heard their debut album Omertà yet, I STRONGLY recommend it.
High Wire is a song
originally by a band called Badlands;
a band put together by former Ozzy
Osbourne guitarist Jake E. Lee
(best known for playing on Bark at the
Moon) and vocalist Ray Gillen,
whom was ever so partially a member of Black
Sabbath before the band recorded their Eternal
Idol. Ray would eventually pass
away in the mid-90’s, not getting a chance to become the recognized rock singer
that he always should have been. Other members on their first album were Greg Chaisson on bass and future Kiss drummer Eric Singer. This is a band that fell in to obscurity very quickly
despite having some acclaim in their early days. They were simply a hard rock
band, no nonsense, no synthesizers or studio experimenting in their songs, just
straight up blues-based hard rock and released three of the greatest hard rock
albums you’ve never heard of that you should listen to if you know what’s good
for you.
Anyway this is an Adrenaline
Mob review, and not a Badlands review,
so getting back on track here: the band more than does justice to High Wire. The song is played with the
exact same arrangement as the original recording, just down tuned a half a
step. They hold back on any metal chops and keep it a hard rock song, which for
metal virtuosos such as Orlando and Portnoy could not have been easy. But
the aspect of the song that requires the most acclaim is Russell Allen. He is already one of, if not the greatest current
heavy metal vocalist, having the best vocal range since the great Rob Halford. But what impresses me is
how similar he makes his voice sound like Ray
Gillen’s. You’d almost think it was the man himself singing the song!
Next on the album is Stand
Up and Shout, originally by the legendary late great Ronnie James Dio and his band Dio.
To any Dio fans delight, this is
only one of three Ronnie James Dio
songs the band covered for the album (one from each of Ronnie’s three main bands). This is where the band starts to sound
like a heavy metal band. The song still has the same arrangement as the
original, just once again it is down tuned a half a step, only this time Mike Orlando shows off his shredding
capabilities a bit more than Vivien
Campbell did on the songs original recording. Russell does a terrific job singing the song, this time he doesn’t
quite shape his voice to sound like Ronnie’s,
whether he tried to or not, but his voice fits the song perfectly as its own.
The next track is Romeo
Delight, a Van Halen cover. To
the pleasure of Van Halen fans, it’s
not one of their most famous songs but a somewhat obscure one that is the
favourite to many of the bands fans.
The band down tunes the song by an entire step, but keeps the fun nature of the
original song. Mike Orlando shows
his true Edward Van Halen influence
playing all of the guitar parts almost perfectly, maybe showing off just a
little bit more. He also pays tribute to Jimmy
Page by doing a small cover of Whole
Lotta Love at the end of the solo break. Something I’ve noticed, that some
people may not notice is the drum solo that Portnoy plays after the guitar solo is almost pound for pound the
drum solo Alex Van Halen plays in
another obscure Van Halen song, Light Up the Sky. Russell does a valiant attempt at singing the song in the fun
nature that David Lee Roth did in
the original...but couldn’t quite do it. There are some songs that only DLR can sing. That doesn’t mean that Russell sounds bad on this song, not at
all! He also completes the song with yet another obscure Van Halen song reference, by saying “Oh, Jimmy”, referencing the
way the song Top Jimmy ends.
Barracuda is another
widely recognized song that the band covers on the album. Originally performed
by Heart, and originally a hard rock
song, the band picks up the distortion a bit and turns the song in to a
heart-thumping metal track, otherwise with pretty much the same arrangement.
Kill The
King is the second cover of a Ronnie James Dio song, from his band Rainbow. This time around however, the band is paying tribute to
more than one iconic rock figure. Rainbow
featured three legendary rock stars, on guitar Deep Purple’s Ritchie
Blackmore and on drums, the late great Cozy
Powell on drums, journeyman of such bands as Black Sabbath, Whitesnake
and Jeff Beck, to name a few, so Adrenaline Mob is filling some heavy
shoes. The result is a fantastic one. The original Kill the King was recorded before heavy metal was what it is today,
and always felt like it could have been heavier than it was, and Adrenaline Mob does exactly that,
without missing a beat of the original arrangement of the song.
It’s almost a cliché to expect a Led Zeppelin song to be featured on a covers album. The one chosen
for this album was The Lemon Song,
much like Romeo Delight it is not
the most well known song for a band to cover. And much like High Wire, the band kept the song tamed
to its original hard rock sound, for the most part, and definitely does the
song justice.
The last track, and the third of the Ronnie James Dio covers is Mob
Rules, originally recorded when Ronnie
was in Black Sabbath. The song is
arranged similarly to the original version, only Portnoy changes the drums ever so slightly. The song still has its
original pace and aggressiveness. The cover of the song is an obvious tongue in
cheek joke given the title of the song and the title of the band, and that
makes the song an appropriate conclusion to the album.
The most impressive aspect of this album is the choice of songs that they have covered. They didn’t choose the most socially recognizable songs to cover, instead opting to go a little obscure with their selections. In fact, some people who listen to the album may think that some of the songs are Adrenaline Mob originals.
ALBUM HIGHLIGHT
“Barracuda” – It’s an
awkward task to choose a highlight from a covers album. Barracuda however is a great choice, because it is a highly
recognized classic rock song, and the band does a more than excellent job
turning the song into their own. The single most important thing
about this song is how Russell
delivers the vocals. The original version may have been sung by a woman, the
legendary Ann Wilson, but any Heart fan knows that Ann was never a woman to mess with. Russell does probably the next best job
that you could imagine anyone singing the song.
FINAL RATING
7 (Out of 10)
Track List:
1.
|
"High Wire"
|
3:48
|
2.
|
"Stand Up and Shout"
|
3:35
|
3.
|
"Break On Through (To The Other Side)"
|
3:01
|
4.
|
"Romeo Delight"
|
5:08
|
5.
|
"Barracuda"
|
4:12
|
6.
|
"Kill the King"
|
4:32
|
7.
|
"The Lemon Song"
|
6:47
|
8.
|
"Mob Rules"
|
3:17
|
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