Music Banter - View Single Post - Bitesize: Trollheart's Daily Album Mini-Reviews

Trollheart · 02-26-2015, 02:02 PM

Sometimes it's better not to take that step...

Artiste: Don Airey
Nationality: British
Album: All out
Year: 2011
Label: Music Theories Recording
Genre: Progressive Rock/AOR
Tracks:
The way I feel inside
Estancia
People in your head
B’cos
Running from the shadows
Right arm overture
Fire
Long road
Wrath of Thor
Tobruk
Chronological position: Third solo album, thirty-fourth overall
Familiarity: I know his work from Deep Purple, Gary Moore, Whitesnake and Rainbow among others
Interesting factoid: Don’s second name is Smith, as in Donald Smith Airey
Initial impression: Big rocky keyboard sound that definitely recalls the heyday of Purple
Best track(s): Estancia, B’cos, Running from the shadows, Right arm overture, Long road, Tobruk
Worst track(s): The way I feel inside, People in your head, Fire, Wrath of Thor
Comments: I had originally been saving this for my series (of so far one) about keyboard players, “Keyboard Wizards” but god knows when I’ll get back to that, so let’s give it the “Bitesize” treatment here. As it kicks off it’s almost more guitar driven with The way I feel inside, but it’s a little offputting to hear this sort of seventies rock on a current album, even given that Airey is in Purple and was in Rainbow, as well as a lot of other big bands. Still, you know, if I want to hear Purple I’ll buy a Purple album. Not a great start. Estancia is better, with big mellotron and rumbling drums, an instrumental, which is sort of what I expected. Still very seventies sounding though. Some great keyboard histrionics though. Better. Then we’re back to a real Purple groove with People in your head, but the vocalist is even imitating Gillan’s woos and waahs. Sigh. Liking this less as it goes on.

For an album made by a guy who carved out a living sitting in front of a bank of keyboards, this has way too much guitar on it. Not even any piano yet, though the rising chords opening B’cos certainly give me some hope. Mind you, here comes that guitar again and the keys are kind of fading into the background. It is a nice instrumental though. Very reminiscent of the kind of stuff Airey did with the late Gary Moore. The first vocal track I really like is Running from the shadows, which eschews the seventies hard rock feel for a more eighties AOR idea and it really works. Like this a lot. Very keyboard-driven too, as it should be. As is Right arm overture, though it also features some peerless fretless bass, another instrumental --- is it? I look and see it runs for seven minutes…

Yeah, looks like it is. And finally Airey gets a chance to really flex his muscles on the keys, showing us why he’s one of the most in-demand keysmen in the business. Great organ work, mellotron, some piano. Lovely stuff and very progressive rock too. Unfortunately there’s a massive step backwards then with his frankly awful cover of Hendrix’s Fire, which at over five minutes is way too long, but thankfully we can forget about that with the lovely Mooresque ballad Long road, with its stupendous guitar intro thanks to Joe Bonamassa, another instrumental, then Wrath of Thor has a dark, ominous opening before it crashes into another seventies Gillan rip-off. Oh lord save me! I don’t know about Thor, but much of this album is feeling the wrath of Trollheart!

I see the last track is ten minutes long! God I hope it’s a good one; I’ve not listened to an album in quite a while that had this many bad tracks on it but wasn’t total rubbish. I’m hoping for a strong ending. And it certainly starts that way, with a big throaty synth and a piano introduction that really hits the spot. Then it pounds along in the best tradition of Dio, which is heartening. It’s not an instrumental, so I wonder if it will be the second vocal track on the album I like? Sounds like it could be. Yeah, looks like he saved the best for last. Epic. Why couldn’t the rest of the album be like this?
Overall impression: An album of two halves, where the good don’t quite balance out the bad. Not enough keyboards for an album by a keyboard player and not something I would be intending to listen to again.
Hum Factor: 4
Surprise Factor: -8
Intention: Think very carefully before approaching Airey’s solo work again. I see he had a new one out last year. I won’t be rushing to listen to it.

02-26-2015, 02:02 PM	#226 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,996	Sometimes it's better not to take that step... Artiste: Don Airey Nationality: British Album: All out Year: 2011 Label: Music Theories Recording Genre: Progressive Rock/AOR Tracks: The way I feel inside Estancia People in your head B’cos Running from the shadows Right arm overture Fire Long road Wrath of Thor Tobruk Chronological position: Third solo album, thirty-fourth overall Familiarity: I know his work from Deep Purple, Gary Moore, Whitesnake and Rainbow among others Interesting factoid: Don’s second name is Smith, as in Donald Smith Airey Initial impression: Big rocky keyboard sound that definitely recalls the heyday of Purple Best track(s): Estancia, B’cos, Running from the shadows, Right arm overture, Long road, Tobruk Worst track(s): The way I feel inside, People in your head, Fire, Wrath of Thor Comments: I had originally been saving this for my series (of so far one) about keyboard players, “Keyboard Wizards” but god knows when I’ll get back to that, so let’s give it the “Bitesize” treatment here. As it kicks off it’s almost more guitar driven with The way I feel inside, but it’s a little offputting to hear this sort of seventies rock on a current album, even given that Airey is in Purple and was in Rainbow, as well as a lot of other big bands. Still, you know, if I want to hear Purple I’ll buy a Purple album. Not a great start. Estancia is better, with big mellotron and rumbling drums, an instrumental, which is sort of what I expected. Still very seventies sounding though. Some great keyboard histrionics though. Better. Then we’re back to a real Purple groove with People in your head, but the vocalist is even imitating Gillan’s woos and waahs. Sigh. Liking this less as it goes on. For an album made by a guy who carved out a living sitting in front of a bank of keyboards, this has way too much guitar on it. Not even any piano yet, though the rising chords opening B’cos certainly give me some hope. Mind you, here comes that guitar again and the keys are kind of fading into the background. It is a nice instrumental though. Very reminiscent of the kind of stuff Airey did with the late Gary Moore. The first vocal track I really like is Running from the shadows, which eschews the seventies hard rock feel for a more eighties AOR idea and it really works. Like this a lot. Very keyboard-driven too, as it should be. As is Right arm overture, though it also features some peerless fretless bass, another instrumental --- is it? I look and see it runs for seven minutes… Yeah, looks like it is. And finally Airey gets a chance to really flex his muscles on the keys, showing us why he’s one of the most in-demand keysmen in the business. Great organ work, mellotron, some piano. Lovely stuff and very progressive rock too. Unfortunately there’s a massive step backwards then with his frankly awful cover of Hendrix’s Fire, which at over five minutes is way too long, but thankfully we can forget about that with the lovely Mooresque ballad Long road, with its stupendous guitar intro thanks to Joe Bonamassa, another instrumental, then Wrath of Thor has a dark, ominous opening before it crashes into another seventies Gillan rip-off. Oh lord save me! I don’t know about Thor, but much of this album is feeling the wrath of Trollheart! I see the last track is ten minutes long! God I hope it’s a good one; I’ve not listened to an album in quite a while that had this many bad tracks on it but wasn’t total rubbish. I’m hoping for a strong ending. And it certainly starts that way, with a big throaty synth and a piano introduction that really hits the spot. Then it pounds along in the best tradition of Dio, which is heartening. It’s not an instrumental, so I wonder if it will be the second vocal track on the album I like? Sounds like it could be. Yeah, looks like he saved the best for last. Epic. Why couldn’t the rest of the album be like this? Overall impression: An album of two halves, where the good don’t quite balance out the bad. Not enough keyboards for an album by a keyboard player and not something I would be intending to listen to again. Hum Factor: 4 Surprise Factor: -8 Intention: Think very carefully before approaching Airey’s solo work again. I see he had a new one out last year. I won’t be rushing to listen to it. __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018