Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Winger
Label: Frontiers Records
Release: 2014
Running time: 47:30
Rating: 5/5
In the musical universe of melodic rock, Kip Winger is the kind of musician who has superior alertness and an incredibly refined feel for arranging songs. He’s one of the most accomplished composers not just in the genre, but across the whole era of rock. Even rock guru Alan Parsons picked up on his talents, and Kip Winger has often joined him on his live tours, taking over as lead vocalist for the timeless Alan Parsons Project evergreens.
»Better Days Comin’« is only the sixth studio album from Winger. Their career splits into two periods with a stretch of inactivity in between. The first is the »bad ass« era of classic Winger, when the quartet rode a gigantic wave of commercial success without a care in the world, from the late eighties into the early nineties. Some of you probably still vividly remember them opening for The Scorpions in Zagreb in 1990. Then came a break until 2001, a reactivation, and the comeback album »IV« in 2006. With the reunion, Winger entered a period of creative maturity. After the cautious »IV,« the album »Karma« (2009), with its polish and greater dynamism, hinted that the new Winger could steer their established musical identity toward art rock. Even though Karma is still a compact, challenging-sounding hard rock album through and through, full of fresh ideas and wit, just a year earlier Kip Winger had made it clear again with his studio effort »From The Moon To The Sun« that he’s a musician who hears music through an artistic lens far, far wider than the rock territory Winger had revealed on their records up to that point.
This time Winger and Kip Winger didn’t put out separate albums. Instead, five years after »Karma,« only a new Winger album has arrived. You can say it’s by far the most artistically challenging album of the band’s career, and they’ve managed to pull off something essential with it. For all the incredible variety the new record brings, it’s undeniably clear in every single second of its running time that this is a Winger album through and through. Kip Winger took ideas that would once have belonged on his solo studio album and worked them into the signature Winger sound, all while keeping its core characteristics intact. That loosened up the band’s expressive range from earlier studio albums, lifting them to a higher artistic level with this record. What »Karma« was »quietly« announcing, its successor »Better Days Comin’« now delivers »loudly.« Truth be told, the seeds of what’s happening with Winger today can already be found on the more complex »Pull« from 1993, and to complete the picture you’d also have to mention Kip Winger’s solo studio album with tangibly eclectic content from 1996, titled »This Conversation Seems Like a Dream«
»Better Days Comin’« is an album of ferocious variety that, thanks to the sharp definition and big charisma of all ten songs on it, can flip on a dime. Opener Midnight Driver of a Love Machine keeps the real »bad ass« spirit of classic Winger. It’s a »party time« track on which Winger stay potently on the prowl for hot chicks! Every line of the lyrics, masterfully wrapped in metaphor as they are, boils down to just one thing (»…by remote control she’ll save your soul…«). At the same time, even this opening track, especially in how the composition develops, hints at artistic maturity. The party-time vibe from the opener is joined on the album by the title track, which really flares up in a catchy, highly seductive melodic chorus of tremendous positive charm that you’ll take as your own instantly. The third such moment is Rat Race, a rock ‘n’ roll rally drive with the gear stick in top position. A colossal dash through thick and thin, where it’s not hard to catch the smell of frying motor oil, tires and brakes, while also taking an extremely critical look at today’s corrupt Western world, where everything is subordinated to piling up capital.
Already in the opening track, Winger point to the remarkable tightness of all the elements of the quartet. Rod Morgenstein didn’t »train« with The Dixie Dregs for nothing, and Reb Beach and John Roth create real chemical superiority, with a hyperplasia of a wide range of extravagant solo acrobatics of great technical brilliance that their guitar playing can serve up. If we pause for a moment on Reb Beach, Winger are the one place where this master truly shows all his virtues and his incredible talent bares itself freely and unhindered in all its glory. In Whitesnake he has to »rein himself in« and follow the instructions of chief Coverdale. In general, at Whitesnake shows there’s a feeling that Coverdale gives Doug Aldrich a slight edge over Beach. Either way, Beach will bewitch you with his multi-facetedness, which shines in full precisely in Winger!
Already the second song, Queen Babylon, offers progressive elements in the verse that Winger hadn’t offered before, and it’s joined even more noticeably by the superb Tin Soldier that follows. One of the album’s peaks, it’s structured progressively through and through, while Winger still hold on to the red thread of a compact melody. It’s almost a frenzied, schizoid vocal outburst from Kip Winger, who roars at full force with his raspy, guttural tone. In this song, the »mid eight« passage even carries traces of jazz. A brilliant composition that keeps »creeping« toward fragmentation, but Winger masterfully balance it by bringing those experimental moments back toward a compact guitar phrase.
The breakneck pace of the first half of the album only gets calmed down by the sixth track, Ever Wonder. It’s one of the album’s most beautiful songs, with a mood-setting contrast between the lead keyboard motif and a thick, pulsing bass line that loosens up the laid-back rhythm! Kip’s remarkable vocal slides into that setting, bringing serenity and peace to the song. The sensuality of Kip Winger’s voice on this track is literally enchanting. Given that Ever Wonder is wedged in right after Tin Soldier, you can instantly enjoy two basic vocal approaches from Kip Winger. Chaos and equilibrium! So Long China is marked by yet another of the album’s most distinctive chorus melodies. On this song Kip Winger’s vocals range from distinctly guttural (verse) to sophisticatedly caressing (chorus). What makes this song special is its remarkable »mid-eight,« which, with the melodic quality of its defined motif and a jump in atmosphere toward AOR bombast, takes over the dominant position in the song, which is otherwise a great rarity. But given the well-known wisdom of the great Kip Winger, that’s no surprise anymore! Above all, the closing exit section of the »mid eight« passage before the return to the pre-chorus pours oil on the fire, as Winger “swerve” toward Eastern melodic makeup and back the basic rhythm with additional Eastern-flavored sub-rhythms of »jingling.«
The album’s third progressively seasoned song is the heavy, rolling, dark, mid-tempo Storm In Me. Kip Winger fights his way through a storm of black thoughts, and the song feels almost post-apocalyptic, as fateful as can be, while the relationship between the rhythm and the lead guitar phrase is progressively loosened, especially thanks to the room that Rod Morgenstein masterfully dominates with his drum fills. The soothing Be Who You Are, Now is another spot that calms down this high-octane album full of voltage and creative freshness, adding yet another melodically top-notch moment to it. Here too a whole range of finesses reigns, like the theatrically placed swerve of the keyboard melody toward arabesques, or the superb art rock extension in the outro, where guitarist Reb Beach impresses with his sophistication. The closing Out of this World feels solemn and awakening, with Kip Winger making peace in the lyrics with himself and the world around him. In its opening section too it maintains a slight »brokenness« between the guitar phrase and the rhythm, and hence a prog sentiment. Yet another highlight of the album, right at the tail end!
With »Better Days Comin’« Winger have created an album where they breathed an extraordinary amount of ideas into the melodic hard rock component, ideas they’d never tried out in this way in their vocabulary until now. The musical body of Winger passed these tests successfully, incorporated them, and grew to a higher level of independent artistic evolution. Thanks to its progressive elements, »Better Days Comin’« is a perfect combination of melodic hard rock with a distinct art rock component of eclectic content. That means Winger have moved the artistic bar to a new musical horizon and uncovered fields of artistic freshness where they can carry on nurturing and building on that artistry, unburdened, in the future. An outstanding album without a bad moment. An album of artistic brilliance and great aesthetics of compositional perfection, to which you can’t add or take away a thing. »Better Days Comin’« counts as one of the finest rock albums released this year! It won’t be interesting only to diehard melodic rock fans and Winger fans, but especially to everyone drawn to eclecticism in music! The songs are woven from loads of minor finesses that you’ll peel back like veils long after this album has gone through many spins in your CD player.
Line-up
Kip Winger – vocals, bass guitar, keyboards
Reb Beach – guitar, backing vocals
John Roth – guitar, backing vocals
Rod Morgenstein – drums
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Cenk Eroglu – keyboards, sound effects
Marco Giovino – percussion
Paula Winger – backing vocals
Production
C.F. Kip Winger
Track list
1. Midnight Driver of a Love Machine (4:14)
2. Queen Babylon (4:31)
3. Rat Race (3:36)
4. Better Days Comin’ (3:31)
5. Tin Soldier (3:49)
6. Ever Wonder (6:52)
7. So Long China (4:17)
8. Storm in Me (4:42)
9. Be Who You Are Now (5:11)
10. Out of This World (6:37)
