Artist: Great White
Label: Frontiers Records
Release: 2007
Rating: 4/5
Eight years after “Can’t Get There From Here” (1999), they’re back! In between, a horrifying catastrophe nearly finished the band off, and the sharks still pulled through it all. Of course, it didn’t go without bumps and scrapes. Still, judging by what the new album has to say, it’s not hard to conclude that Great White are firmly back in the saddle and have no intention of climbing down off those horses any time soon.
The band owed a big debt to its fans, one that piled up during the years when the guys were performing as “Jack Russell’s Great White” without releasing a single album. And “Back To The Rhythm” has definitely paid off all that waiting in spades. Great White have shoved a fantastic hard rock album onto the market, a textbook example of how to land that “magic shot” that keeps the unsaid unsaid.
“Back To The Rhythm” is a quintessential Great White album. Eight years is one hell of a break, and the guys have matured in that time. The ideas feel fresh, the band is on the same page about how to turn those ideas into musical language, and all the building blocks fit together with incredible efficiency, powering each other up. Singer Jack Russell is definitely the key element that makes this album the real deal, a true classic monument that proves, even in this century, how utterly charming rock n’ roll can be. “Back To The Rhythm” is an incredibly consistent album, with clearly defined core motifs that put every song on it exactly where it belongs, each with a clear mood and a neatly rounded-off story. Great White open the album with the uptempo title track, built on a simple but powerful guitar riff. In the chorus it hands the lead to Russell, whose magical voice (a touch “Plant-like” in the higher, highest registers) wins the listener over in an instant. The guys have given the album more of a blues flavor than on its predecessors, when they were mostly thinking about bedroom acrobatics. Here Goes My Head Again proves it with a gorgeous chorus whose melodic accent (like an impressive spice) nods to Jagger’s tricks in the Rolling Stones. Take Me Down, meanwhile, is a real balm today for anyone missing the spirit of the golden-era Guns N’ Roses.
An interesting thing about the album is that the middle is very mellow and very “blue.” That calm is created by tracks 3 through 6, which are deeply personal and come one right after another. And it’s exactly this calm that delivers the album’s highest points. The first is the power blues ballad Play On, with acoustic guitars and an inventive classical piano backing in the chorus, mixed with a breeze of southern longing from the guitars. Russell shows what a superb singer he is, as the sophisticated articulation of his tone brings individual moods and feelings vividly to life. Thanks to Russell’s skillful singing, the songs feel alive, even though it’s a studio album, and they’re loaded with emotion. With Was It The Night? the guys stay on the exact same blues power ballad frequency, with a touch of passionate embrace and eroticism that flares up in it even a little more intensely. Neighborhood is a cheeky change of dynamics and a jump into hard rock heels, with a noticeable pinch of southern flirting in the chorus. That the years didn’t pass in silence is proven by the longing for bygone days of innocence and pure lust for scooping up life with the biggest spoon, in How Far Is Heaven and the closer Just Yesterday. The two practically compete for the status of Great White’s personal requiem, should the band decide to hang up their careers for good, which of course would be endlessly regretted (Good morning, Toto!).
The chorus lines of the wistful, melancholic Just Yesterday, where Russell is especially delicate in his singing, sketch out the path of every one of us:
“Just yesterday, when we were young,
The world could wait and time was on our side,
The road would never end,…”
These lines prove that the guys’ hearts have softened over the years and that we’re facing a very sentimental album that doesn’t skimp on convincingly bringing emotions to life. The production is live-sounding, the guitar work incredibly tight, with subtle and ideally minimalist touches that pour oil on the fire (in the transitions and solos) as they build the dramatic atmosphere and rock n’ roll eroticism the whole album is packed with.
Young bands today are no longer capable of albums like this, because today is not the time of hard rock. “Back To The Rhythm” is in fact a testament steeped in the spirit of bygone days, days when rock n’ roll was young and innocent, days that will never come back. It’s a very nostalgic album, an album of the band’s complete return to the scene, one of the best classic hard rock albums of 2007, and an album that proves the sharks have caught the rhythm of life again. That’s that. With “Back To The Rhythm” the guys have handed their fans the best gift imaginable, one that more than made up for the years of waiting. An album that will surely soon become a classic of the Great White discography. A mellow, mature, sophisticated rock album compared to the testosterone-spraying highs of “Twice Shy” or “Once Biten,” an album of profound self-knowledge, of making peace with oneself, an album of accepting yourself and your surroundings, an album of closing the circle and reaffirming the band. So Great White are biting again. The set of teeth is still intact, not a tooth chipped, only now the great white shark knows how to snap at new prey far more skillfully and effectively. The album, recorded and produced in just 24 days, is eclectic in every respect. An epitaph the band probably wouldn’t have pulled off had the lineup not taken such a long break.
Lineup
Jack Russell – vocals
Mark Kendall – guitar
Michael Lardie – keyboards, guitar, backing vocals
Sean McNabb – bass guitar
Audie Desbrow – drums
Production
Michael Lardie & Great White
Track list
01. Back To The Rhythm
02. Here Goes My Head Again
03. Take Me Down
04. Play On
05. Was It The Night?
06. I’m Alive
07. Still Hungry
08. Standin’ On The Edge
09. How Far Is Heaven?
10. Neighborhood
11. 30 Days In The Hole
12. Just Yesterday
Running time: 55.02
