Label: Frontiers Music Srl.
Release date: March 12, 2021
Production: Danny Rexon
Album length: 46.43 min
Genre: AOR/Hard Rock
Rating: 9.0/10
Remember First Time, the 1988 hit by singer Robin Beck, which was used in an ad for that standardized, harmful-to-your-health beverage called Coca-Cola? A brilliant composition, a brilliant rock evergreen. Every thought of it (and of the sexy Robin too) couldn’t possibly be any sweeter.
Let’s rewind to late autumn 2009. To Ronke, a town in the Slovenian border region of Italy. On that long-ago day, the American AOR/glam metallers House Of Lords played there. And yes, you read that right – the band’s frontman James Christian is married to none other than Robin Beck. Another important detail was the appearance of the band Kane’d. Three girls, sisters from Wales to be exact, opened the show for House Of Lords and already then blew people away with their strong personalities. Among them, spinning on her heels and straining her vocal cords on stage, was a very young Chez Kane. Fast-forward a good ten years, and the head of the Scandinavian melodic rock outfit Crazy Lixx, Danny Rexon, took a shine to her unsuspected talents and virtues. He teamed up with her and wrote, arranged, played the instruments and handled the album production – basically everything needed for the girl to release her self-titled studio debut. She naturally contributed her brilliant vocals, which shine with full intensity and character in the musical setting Rexon had in mind.
When Rexon was crafting the songs for this album, he had in mind, the whole time, a restoration of the radio-friendly hits of the eighties that were ruled by female vocals. One – Robin Beck – we’ve already mentioned; the others are of course Lita Ford, Ann & Nancy Wilson (both of Heart), Vixen, and also Pat Benatar, Johanna Dean,… The album “Chez Kane” really is, in a way, a reflection of those distant times. But primarily not because of Chez Kane’s vocals, which certainly put the cherry on top, but first and foremost because of the songwriting approach, which provides the foundation for this feeling of re-creating the eighties. Maybe there was even a touch too much “borrowing”. The chorus of Ball ‘N Chain briefly pulls you toward Belinda Carlisle’s hit Heaven is a Place on Earth.
The debut “Chaz Kane” is an excellent album of incredibly successful revivalism of those times. As if the eighties had never ended. Rexon is incredibly experienced, and for him creating this album was a hugely welcome moment in his career to step away from writing music for the new Crazy Lixx album, which honestly wouldn’t have said anything new. The partnership with Chez Kane, on the other hand, brings an incredible freshness, which is personified by the look and feel of this album, and let’s hope that this great duo, where some kind of “lockdown magic” reigns between the two musicians, is far from its last. The production is definitely updated for 2021. Still, Rexon has equipped the arrangements with the rustling sound of eighties synthesizers, grabby vocal harmonies joining the lead (triumphant especially in Die In The Name Of Love), flirtatiously sharpened rhythm formats, piercing guitar phrases, wonderfully fluid modulations in the mid-eight passages (solos included), even extra “loops” (Get It On), and the integration of saxophones, and the whole production picture achieves an appealing atmospheric contrast. There’s also a track where Chez comes across as a real ‘femme fatale’ (Too Late For Love).
Rexxon is a devil. For this way of composing, you need not only talent and a big songwriting streak, but you also have to keep the singer you’re writing the music for in view the whole time. “How will the singer react if I use this form?” And similar questions of “sensual anticipation” that you have to find answers to. And Rexxon did a top-notch job in his partnership with Chez Kane. “Chez Kane” is one of the better eighties-revival albums to come out this year, or in the last few years for that matter. There are ten tracks. A good three quarters of an hour of music. There are no dips in quality between the songs, and you pick your own favorites. Anyone who’s a friend of the rhetoric of the eighties west-coast AOR principle will quickly befriend the character of the album “Chez Kane”.
You pick your own favorites. But if nothing else, the tracks All Of It and Rocket On The Radio, lined up back to back, will give you goosebumps without any reservations. Pure, carved-out eighties. When you set aside all the information written in this review essay and just give yourself over to the energy of the music, your sense of time and place vanishes in an instant. Fun. Just as fun and carefree as the eighties were. Times of bubbling optimism and positive vibes. That’s what the eighties were like. In 2021 that’s something incredibly eccentric, which makes the re-capitulation of those feelings on the excellent album “Chez Kane” all the more thrilling and sweet.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. Better Than Love
2. All Of It
3. Rocket On The Radio
4. Get It On
5. Too Late For Love
6. Defender Of The Heart
7. Ball N’ Chain
8. Midnight Rendezvous
9. Die In The Name Of Love
10. Dead End Street
Lineup:
Chez Kane – vocals
Danny Rexon – all instruments, arrangements
