Label: Rat Pack Records
Release date: May 7, 2021
Production: Kurdt Vanderhoof
Length: 43.04 min
Genre Heavy Rock
Rating: 9.0/10
Todd Michael Hall. Who? Who the hell is that now? The Riot V singer some of you may have met face to face on October 20, 2018, when he played Ljubljana’s CUK Kino Šiška with Riot V (opening for Primal Fear, RockLine review). And the more dedicated among you might have caught him at Tolmin’s Metaldays festival in 2014, when Riot V closed out the fourth day on the smaller of the two stages.
So you’d expect Todd to deliver a bristling heavy metal album, with the singer hitting fifth-octave notes with feather-light ease (which is his trademark anyway), maybe even something close to this year’s solo studio album from his fellow countryman and namesake Todd La Torre, who has been hauling what’s left of Queensryche out of the muck with his vocals for almost ten years now. Nope. “Sonic Healing”, where Todd Michael Hall casts himself as a true “sonic healer” (at least going by the title), is first and foremost a heavy rock album, with springs that push now toward the legacy of the N.W.O.B.H.M. (we’re talking about the first British “swallows” of that wave at the turn of the seventies into the eighties), now toward classic seventies hard rock. Bands like Judas Priest from the “Staned Class” era come to mind, and also Triumph and (staying with the Canadians for a moment) April Wine or Coney Hatch, among others. And once you run into the name Kurdt Vanderhoof while reading up on the album, most of the answers to how Hall managed to come up with an album like this become obvious right away. Vanderhoof, the boss of cult American band Metal Church, is the co-writer of the songs and the producer of Hall’s solo studio album. Genius. We know Vanderhoof is much more than just the guitarist of Metal Church. His solo records love to flirt with the legacy of seventies rock, even progressive rock (his 2000 project Vanderhoof makes those associations). Love Rain Down carries the most of this Vanderhoof inspiration on the album “Sonic Heaven”, as well as of his songwriting style, which likes to “complicate” things now and then (the mid-eight passage even has a pinch of psychedelic rock). It’s worth pointing out, and it’s very interesting, that “Sonic Healing” sounds like the way Riot wrote their music in the early part of their career (still deep in the seventies). At moments the phrasing veers sharply toward the elementary rock ‘n’ roll nature and even boogie. So throwing around the names AC/DC and Status Quo isn’t far-fetched either. An incredible boogie rock hybrid on the album is All On The Line. The song Like No Other could easily find a home on any of the classic Metal Church albums. From this description it’s clear that the tracks have quite a colorful stylistic and arrangement gap between them.
“Sonic Healing” is therefore a very relaxing, old-school-sounding heavy rock album, where the hooks are seriously punchy and crawl under your skin in no time, because with their elementary rock attitude they build a hungry, effective impact. And co-creating and magnifying this brilliantly effective experience, of course, is the fantastic vocal of Todd Michael Hall, who is flat-out flawless and shows off some sides of his expression that stayed hidden on the two Riot V albums so far.
This collaboration is downright fascinating. It comes across not only as remarkably harmonious and complementary, but it speaks with an exceptionally relaxed and flexible rock nature that, being more rustic and retro-sounding, can hardly win listeners over in 2021. The album also has moments that are bubbling and optimistic, like Running After You or Somebody’s Fool. These are songs built on major scales, which is why they stand out on the album. The pre-chorus passage in Running After You is mildly similar in tonality to lines Rush might have written in the seventies. Even Todd Michael Hall’s tonal color, in a way, evokes the vocal character of seventies Geddy Lee in that pre-chorus passage.
The album “Sonic Healing” is an extremely pleasant surprise. An excellent album of classic-sounding heavy rock content, skillfully packaged. A captivating album that once again confirms the great chemistry and the creative sparks flying between Hall and Vanderhoof. Michael Hall is a hellishly fascinating vocalist, and Kurdt Vanderhoof’s production and classic approach to phrasing and songwriting fit the guy like a glove. “Sonic Healing” is thus the product of two musicians with an all-encompassing, complementary creative magic between them, and let’s hope it lasts for another musical outing or two in the future.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. Overdrive
2. Let Loose Tonight
3. All On The Line
4. Running After You
5. Love Rain Down
6. Sonic Healing
7. Like No Other
8. Somebody’s Fool
9. To The Bone
10. Long Lost Rock & Rollers
Lineup:
Todd Michael Hall
Kurdt Vanderhoof
