Artist: Zion
Label: Frontiers Records
Release: 2006
Zion marks the return to the music scene of the excellent vocalist Freddy Curci, a Canadian whose career reaches back to the late seventies, when he was in the band Sheriff, and who is most admired for his contribution to the one and only self-titled album by Alias, a band Freddy founded together with members of Heart. Freddy is known for his wide range and powerful voice, even in the highest passages, and for his soul leanings, in the company of names like Bobby Kimball (Toto), Lee Small (Surveillance), Joseph Williams, Steve Overland (FM) or even Glenn Hughes (though with far less control over his vocal articulation). A few of the songs were originally written for a second Alias album, which never saw the light of day (How Much Longer Is Forever).
The guy was seriously ill not long ago, and there were question marks over whether he’d even be allowed to sing again. “Zion” is the answer! But does it live up to the high expectations?
Nope! Simply no, and that’s mostly down to the album’s production, which has completely crippled the material. Freddy produced most of it himself, Fabrizio V. Zee Grossi stepped in to help on three tracks, and the original recordings (master tapes) were such poor quality that they got shipped off to Germany for repairs with sound wizard Dennis Ward (Pink Cream 69), to save whatever could possibly be saved! The sound is now at least partly “straightened out”, but… It was a little too late.
Curci has the ideal voice for a clean, melodic AOR sound. But between the instruments (especially the organ and the guitar riffing) and the vocals there’s simply no clarity, no balance. Everything is squashed and shaken into one big conglomerate, and you just can’t find a way out of this maze of stuffy fog. The album has no real “legs”. The rhythm section isn’t explosive, it’s pushed way too far into the background, the bass line sounds muddy, and the riffing itself lacks the melodic edge that usually lifts the overall sound of this kind of AOR to a higher level, or at least is supposed to. The drummer sounds like he’s living in another dimension, with no special fills to help liven up the songs, and the clattering of the cymbals relentlessly cuts through the overall drum sound. The guitar distortion on the open riffs just fades in volume on the transitions, instead of pulling venomously and filling out the sound picture! Horrible!!!!
An album like this becomes a real ordeal, and thanks to the dreadful production it pecks at your ear like an annoying mosquito. Especially when you think that Freddy is an excellent vocalist, that the intentions were good, the ideas lovely, and that under the baton of the right person it could all have come to life in a completely different light. Interestingly, the tracks Dangerous, No Surprise and Chrash The Mirror are much more acceptable sonically, with all their ingredients carrying far more clarity and Freddy’s vocals getting a satisfying dose of explosiveness. Fabrizio Grossi produced those tracks, and Ward obviously managed to squeeze out the maximum from exactly those.
The songs are mostly built from interesting motifs that, as said, would have given the album a totally different face in the hands of another producer. Given this singer’s esteemed reputation, expectations were sky-high, but from under the “wing” crawled an “ugly duckling” that sadly no cosmetic surgery can help.
Lineup
Freddy Curci – vocals, drums, bass guitar, guitar, piano, organ
Joey Scoleri – guitar
Jason Hook – guitar
Ross Greene – organ
Ken Malandrino – bass guitar
Jason Hook – bass guitar
Paul Marangoni – drums
Joey Greco – drums
Production
Freddy Curci & Fabrizio V. Zee Grossi
Track List
1. All It Takes Is A Minute
2. How Much Longer Is Forever
3. One Man Alone
4. Dangerous
5. I’m Running Home
6. Everybody’s Watching
7. No Surprise
8. The Sky Is Falling
9. The Devil’s Dance
10. Who Do You Think You Are
11. Crash The Mirror
Album length: 49.54
