Artist: Readman, David
Label: Frontiers Records
Release: 2007
Mr. David Readman, our good old acquaintance from Veliko Ubeljsko, vocalist of the German melodic hard rock outfit Pink Cream 69, with whom he played in Slovenia at the Heavy Metal Night festival in mid-July 2007 (RockLine report HERE, Pink Cream 69 interview HERE), clearly knows no rest. After putting out the new Pink Cream 69 studio album “In10sity” with his bandmates this year (RockLine review HERE), he’s back on the rock scene for the second time this year, this time with a solo studio debut, simply titled “David Readman”.
Really, the first paragraph of this review says a lot about what’s on the album. The production sound is very close to Pink Cream 69, with a touch less riff sharpness, which leaves even more room for Readman’s vocals to sit dead center in the overall sound picture, and his Pink Cream 69 buddy Dennis Ward certainly made the most of that in the production. Yes! This is David Readman from head to toe, right in the focal spot of the album!
Let’s stay with the basic biographical facts from that first paragraph. “David Readman” leans on Pink Cream 69’s studio output, especially the post-“Food For Thought” era. Given the slightly “softened” riff backing, this hard rock album slides into the territory of classic British AOR (for example, both of the semi-ballads, Long Way To Heaven and Gentle Touch), only with a much livelier production.
The album kicks off with the highly atmospheric mid-tempo Without You. A very promising start that instantly carries the album into a deeply emotional, melancholy mood and its definite peak, which in this case isn’t exactly welcome. You may already suspect that the album trips lightly over clichés, despite the recognizably unique elements of Readman’s way of singing and the color of his voice. No Evil Combination, which follows as the second track on the list, backs up the drama atmosphere it captured superbly. This song is one of the heavier ones on the album in terms of production, and in sound it’s even the closest to the energy of Pink Cream 69. A similar, more intense sonic sharpness in the Pink Cream 69 vein turns up toward the end in the furious Prisoner Of Shame.
David gathered a colorful bunch of musicians for the collaboration, and with masterful routine and a wealth of knowledge and experience, each of them contributed their own studio best. The feeling is incredible, because despite such a varied palette of players, while listening you never get the sense that the album could wobble left or right depending on the quirks of each individual’s playing. It feels as if David were backed by a classic quartet in an unchanged lineup the whole way through: keyboards, drums, bass guitar, guitar. So the album captures the feeling of a tight and coherent execution of the material, the kind a band can deliver most effectively as a well-oiled unit. In other words, Readman proved himself an excellent commander in the studio, and the crew a docile flock of sheep carrying out orders that stem from David’s ideas.
The only thing that bugs me is that the album in places leans toward late-eighties Whitesnake. The first direct hint is in the third track, the punchy ballad Take These Tears, whose pre-chorus smells suspiciously of Is This Love (orig. Whitesnake), and the next is in the turbo-charged rocker Wild In The City, whose chorus brushes up against Bad Boys by Coverdale’s crew. An interesting little detour is No Peace For The Weaked, with a mild soul blues twist that somehow doesn’t suit David’s clean, punchy melodic voice.
Toward the end the album loses a bit of its interest, especially New Messiah, whose chorus strongly recalls a repeat of the chorus idea already expressed in Evil Combination, and then there’s Over The Ocean, where the guy tries out his vocals over acoustic accompaniment backed by “coco nut” percussion, which in the grand total somehow awkwardly recalls Harry Belafonte getting out of bed on the blackest day of his life. This song is a complete miss on the album. Right at the close sits yet another punchy ballad, Love In Vein, which, buried in clichés, sadly just bores relentlessly.
Despite those remarks, especially the somewhat weaker triad of songs at the end of the album and the resulting badly shaken overall dynamic appeal, David Readman offers an album that will satisfy the tastes of Pink Cream 69 sympathizers, and maybe the odd fan of the AOR tricks of the British Isles will “go for” it too. So it’s a good album, stuck in the quality average of melodic hard rock, without superlatives, but with David’s vocals reigning at undiminished intensity. The guy confidently breathes emotion into every song, and his commitment across the album’s entire running time can’t and mustn’t be overlooked. With this album David Readman confirms that he’s one of the finest singers in modern melodic hard rock, and his execution this time too brings a guarantee of quality that will be hard-pressed to disappoint a listener. Of course, it could have been a lot, lot better.
Lineup
David Readman – vocals, keyboards
Alex Beyrodt – guitar
Gerald Sänger – guitar
Tommy Denander – guitar
Uwe Reitenauer – guitar
Eric Ragno – keyboards
Günter Werno – keyboards
Paul Logue – bass guitar
Dirk Bruinenberg – drums
Chris Schmidt – drums
Production
Dennis Ward
Tracklist
1. Without You
2. Evil Combination
3. Take These Tears
4. Don’t Let It Slip Away
5. No Peace For The Wicked
6. Long Way To Heaven
7. Wild In The City
8. Gentle Touch
9. Prisoner Of Shame
10. New Messiah
11. Over The Ocean
12. Love In Vain
Album length: 56.33
