Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Unruly Child
Label: Frontiers Records
Released: 2017
Running time: 53:54
Rating: 4/5
Unruly Child are a legendary but overlooked AOR outfit from the USA who, after a long spell of dormancy, got back together in the new millennium and returned to the scene in 2010 with the studio album »World’s Apart«. Its follow-up, »Down the Rabbit Hole«, came out four years later with hardly anyone noticing. The band released it only through their official website, and even then only in digital form.
Unruly Child are a quintet of seriously experienced musicians. Some of them, namely guitarist Bruce Gowdy, drummer Jay Schellen and bassist Larry Antonio, go back a long way, to the days when they played together in World Trade. That means the eighties. Look back over the career paths of the individual band members and it becomes clear right away that the material on every album released under the Unruly Child name in the new millennium is bound to be pretty interesting.
Judging by their past output, the band got tagged as AOR, but in their later years Unruly Child have become one of those bands that managed to develop their own unique, instantly recognizable and unmistakable style. You can easily slap the art label on them, since »Can’t Go Home« carries some songwriting cues that could even serve as the basis for a potential progressive rock album. This very latest release, »Can’t Go Home«, has some of the characteristics typical of bands and artists who started out in progressive rock but later, in the eighties, worked more and more compact, predictable songwriting and musical appeal into their sound, which brought them very close to the then-popular AOR genre.
»Can’t Go Home« keeps its polished chorus melodies, which grab you instantly in terms of musical value but don’t necessarily demand your attention. Marcie Free, one of the most striking voices, and sadly also one of the most overlooked, when it comes to hard rock, AOR and melodic rock, works on »Can’t Go Home« quite differently from what was typical of her solo records and her albums with King Kobra and Signal. Her voice is full of sensual sophistication and subtlety, and its tonal range is incredible. It only confirms the artistic growth and maturing this voice has gone through over the years. The album is steeped in vocal harmonies, a hallmark of AOR music, but in both production and arrangement it’s kin to, say, Yes from the era of the albums »Open Your Eyes« and »The Ladder«, then to what Squire and Sherwood did in their joint project Conspiracy, and from there it’s not far to comparisons with World Trade, where three of today’s Unruly Child members once played together.
The guitars aren’t crunched up rock-style in the production. The production is »art«, seeking all the building blocks to live side by side in equal balance, and from the material on the album you can tell it rides very effectively along the middle ground between elements of AOR and melodic rock on one side and elements typical of art rock on the other, without overlooking the hints of progressive rock.
The album is loose in its compositions, vividly packaged in terms of ideas, and varied. It doesn’t go straight to your ear, and that’s actually a pleasant surprise right from the start. In fact it speaks very cautiously and modestly, totally unobtrusively, as The Only One and Four Eleven spin. The first song that truly grabs all your attention doesn’t come until the third one, the excellent Driving into the Future, which signals that we’re dealing with a special album. Get On Top (with a surprisingly dark intro) cements that feeling right after, while the album’s soft character gets further reinforced by the (slightly unnecessary) ballad See If She Floats. The second half of the album, opened more or less by the title track and backed up by the outstanding Point of View, sounds even more challenging and interesting thanks to its extremely refined handling of compact musical figures and experimental touches. The otherwise upbeat album closes with the rousing, optimistically bubbling Someday Somehow, with its grabby chorus melody.
»Can’t Go Home« is a seriously interesting new studio album from this extremely experienced quintet, who to this day haven’t received the recognition they deserve in the world of rock and roll and will most likely stay overlooked even after this one. The eternal takeaway is that Unruly Child couldn’t care less about any trends and follow their own musical vision, which has now brought us a gorgeous new art rock album, proof that Unruly Child are nowhere near saying their last word creatively.
Unruly Child – Point Of View (official audio):
Lineup
Marcie Free – vocals
Bruce Gowdy – guitar
Guy Allison – keyboards
Larry Antonino – bass
Jay Schellen – drums
Production
Unruly Child
Track list
1. The Only One
2. Four Eleven
3. Driving Into The Future
4. Get On Top
5. See If She Floats
6. She Can’t Go Home
7. Point Of View
8. Ice Cold Sunshine
9. When Love Is Here
10. Sunlit Sky
11. Someday Somehow
