Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Hardline
Label: Frontiers Records
Release: 2012
Running time: 59:45
Rating: 4.5/5
Hardline are back with their fourth studio album in twenty years. That’s precious few records, and yet we didn’t have to wait »all« that long this time, just the three years since »Leaving the End Open« (2009) came out. The result is a record brewed in the shortest incubation period of Hardline’s career to date. And what does it serve up? Of all the post-»Double Eclipse« albums, this is the one that sits closest to the true rustic harness of the “retro eighties” rhetoric of the old AOR melodic rock school!
»Danger Zone« is a step up from »Leaving the End Open«. Opener Fever Dreams convinces us of that right away. On the new album, Johnny Gioeli has made the most of his big talent for writing proper melodic rock songs, adorned with fiery arena-ready tunes and mood-lifting peaks in infectious choruses. A big part of that is down to the well-judged production, as well as the decision by band leader Johnny Gioeli to completely overhaul the lineup around him.
Alongside Gioeli, the lineup now features guitarist Thorsten Koehne (Eden’s Curse, Code OI Perfection) and no fewer than three Italian musicians (which fits nicely with the roots of Johnny Gioeli’s family tree). Bassist Anna Portalupi is a member of vocalist Mitch Maloy’s backing crew,, drummer Francesco Jovino plays for Edge Of Forever, and above all he really made his mark on the scene from 2005 on, when he joined U.D.O., led by the former frontman of German metal legends Accept, Udo Dirkscneider. Alessandro Del Vecchio, a member of Shining Line, Jovino’s bandmate in Edge Of Forever and Koehne’s in Eden’s Curse, is the most important member of the new Hardline next to Koehne and Gioeli. He’s an extremely experienced musician who isn’t just a keyboardist and arranger but also an excellent studio producer, one way or another tied into the collaborations within the bands and music projects under the Frontiers Records umbrella. And more. Del Vecchio has worked in the past with some truly big names of rock music. Just a handful: Ian Paice, Glenn Hughes, Steve Walsh, Steve Lukather, brothers Vinnie and Carmine Appice, Bobby Kimball, Roger Glover, Andre Matos (Angra), Bruce Gaitsch, Lars Säfsund, Tommy Denander, Frank Vestry, Rob Marcello, Oliver Hartmann, Bob Harris, Bobby Barth, Ken Hensley, James Christian, Robin Beck, Voodoo Circle, Michael Landau, Mike Baird, David Diggs, Frédéric Slama, Mike Terrana, Kee Marcello (Europe), Docker’s Guild, Wolfpakk, Paul Di Anno, Liberty’n’Justice, Göran Edman, Phillip Bardowell, Mitch Malloy, Michael Voss, Jeff Scott Soto, Clive Bunker, Time Machine, Scott McGuill, Igor Gianola (U.D.O.), the late Marcel Jacob (Talisman), Ron Wikso (Foreigner, The Storm, Cher, David Lee Roth), Telly Ilous (XYZ, Great White), Tony Franklin (Whitesnake), Bernie Marsden (Whitesnake),…That means the new members of Hardline are also bringing a wealth of experience, which matters a lot, because in the studio they find their feet damn fast and efficiently, and turn on a dime whenever it’s needed.
It’s precisely this fired-up new crew of musicians, who are constantly active and therefore in full-blooded studio and live form, that tipped the scales and helped Gioeli get an album onto the market that fully justifies the big name the band earned with their 1992 studio debut »Double Eclispe«, while at the same time opening a whole new chapter in the band’s career. With »Danger Zone«, Hardline have defined their melodic rock principle for the new millennium. Third time’s the charm, then. On their own terms, of course. That’s the Gioeli principle. His distinctive, throaty, explosive approach, with its full melodic payoff, has met an ambient build-up of soundscapes that couldn’t suit him better. Gioeli laid the melody down in the verses, which lets him deliver an optimized vocal performance while developing his full vocal range. Gioeli’s performance is top-notch this time around too.
The new song arrangements are woven together so that the tracks build up a high level of grabby bombast, peaking in choruses that hook you on the very first listen. The keyboards are tuned more or less old-school, backed by generous use of Hammond sound, which links up beautifully with Thorsten Koehne’s up-front guitar phrases. If we limit ourselves to the most interesting points on the album, the opener Fever Dreams and the closer The Only One are really the prime examples of the best-cut chorus melodies, forged in the tradition of the true AOR school in the spirit of late-eighties nostalgia. The song Stay, also released as the lead single, reveals in one breath how convincing the “retro nostalgic cosmetics” of the eighties are for the new Hardline era.Never To Late For Love is another excellent version of an original that vocalists Philip Bardowell and Mark Free (King Kobra, Signal, Unruly Child) once covered in their own versions, and with its signature chorus it keeps up the arrangement-wise extremely strong expressive note of this album Interestingly, the album’s finale gets a hefty boost before the closing The Only One with one more bravura AOR anthem, Show Me Your Love. 10.000 Reasons plays a similar role, sitting at position no. 2 and cementing the album’s powerful, punchy opening statement, which immediately signals that Hardline have done an outstanding job, one that makes any thought of the less decisive »Leaving The End Open« quickly forgotten.
More than ever, Hardline’s music also carries the skills and experience that Gioeli brings to the shape of the new songs, picked up during his time with Axel Rudi Pell. Some tracks come close, both in production and in arrangement backdrops, to the legacy of the old hard rock school that Axel Rudi Pell has been Blackmore-style sworn to since time immemorial. I Don’t Wanna Breakaway is one such example. Please Have Faith in Me is an interesting fold-out of old and new. The harmonized guitars in the opening melody lean hard toward Boston and the »Don’t Look Back« era, while the rest of the song’s arrangement follows the model of today’s whole Scandinavian crowd of melodic rock revivalists.
The record has caught the fashionable cry of melodic rock production in the new era. It’s typically European, with gently pushed-forward guitar riffs (but without the “German” overkill). It breathes with full lungs, and the picture is spectrally filled out in its sonic collages. »Danger Zone« has a real living sonic oomph!
The job is excellently done. Clearly, Alessandro Del Vecchio’s arrival and his arrangements put Gioeli back on the right tracks, and the vocalist has squeezed out of himself the best he knows and can do. With all the praise heaped on so far, the album confirms that the current lineup has great working chemistry and that the members understand each other superbly when it comes to ideas and solutions for the musical material. »Danger Zone« is therefore the point where Gioeli has saddled up his horse the right way, and it’s ready to clear even the highest bars set by the primal legacy of immaculate AOR and melodic rock aesthetics. »Danger Zone« is the point where the band’s recognizable melodic rock groove is finally convincingly established. So let’s hope that Hardline will keep the artistry of their craft going on it, deepen it, and, in the kind of form the album »Danger Zone« shows, deliver a whole bunch more excellent studio records.
Lineup
Johnny Gioeli – vocals
Thorsten Koehne – guitar
Alessandro Del Vecchio – keyboards
Anna Portalupi – bass
Francesco Jovino – drums
Production
Alessandro Del Vecchio
Track list
1, Fever Dreams
2. 10,000 Reasons
3. Danger Zone
4. What I’d Like
5. Stronger Than Me
6. Never Too Late For Love
7. Stay
8. I Don’t Want To Breakaway
9. Look At You Now
10. Please Have Faith In Me
11. Show Me Your Love
12. The Only One
