Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Jaded Heart
Label: Massacre Records
Released: 2018
Length: 51:05
Rating: 4/5
Veteran German hard rockers Jaded Heart, who over the years and through various lineup changes have slowly turned into a Swedish-German musical partnership, are back just two years after »Guilty By Design« with its follow-up, »Devils’ Gift«.
The sound and style stay the same. Erik Martensson (Eclipse) once again had a hand in the final sound polish on this album. Jaded Heart, who can honestly boast some serious mileage on the international rock scene, have made a real sonic “leap” in recent years, especially since teaming up with Martensson in the studio. Let’s call it a refresh, or rather an upgrade. Devil’s Gift carries on the bombastic aggression of its predecessor »Guilty By Desing«.
It’s incredible that a band that remains unfairly overlooked on the scene never runs short of inspiration or creative freshness. After all those years of hard graft and the “forever in the shadows” label, Jaded Heart still write, play and create with real fire and heart. They put out studio albums regularly, too. The band clearly stopped losing sleep over that unlucky status of eternal small-club act a long time ago and just gets on with the music. »Devil’s Gift« delivers extraordinary compactness of expression, a sonically contrasting placement of the instruments, and Fahlberg’s trademark vocals right in the middle of it all. Devil’s Gift serves up a lively, organic sound. This is the second album with two guitars, and Jaded Heart are extremely happy with the effect. The sound is hard and massive. The two guitars are locked in constant interplay, smoothly complementing each other as they trade solo escapes and escapades in harmonized thirds. The dominant feature of the album is the guitar sound, which is »German-style« angry, spiked, wound up and distinctly “crunchy,” while the songs deliver one great musical payoff after another, and with the refreshed production that brings the new Jaded Heart closer to the Scandinavian approach to melodic hard rock. The solos are a real rhapsody for the ears. They’re packed with neoclassical moves and tricks, like the ones in the song Scream Of Anger.
Devils’ Gift keeps the artistic compactness Jaded Heart have been known for all these years. The band remains a go-to address for top-notch melodic rock albums. Once again it’s a perfectionist, polished, sonically superbly dressed album that brims with life and is, of course, highly pompous, hitting atmospheric peaks in its highly infectious choruses. In this new era the band feels right at home in its musical direction and will surely stick with it. Let’s just hope this new album brings Jaded Heart to concert stages a bit closer to Slovenia than Bavaria. If you’re one of the few who know this band and melodic rock in general, and you happen to live in Slovenia, you’ll surely grab this album in a heartbeat. Jaded Heart simply don’t know how to disappoint, and (apparently) can’t.
Lineup
Johan Fahlberg – vocals
Peter Östros – guitar
Michael “Mülli” Müller – bass
Bodo Stricker – drums
Masa Eto – guitar
Production
Jaded Heart & Erik Martensson
Tracklist
1. Wasteland
2. The Enemy
3. Set Free
4. Scream Of Anger
5. Tears Of Our World
6. Phoenix
7. One World
8. Story Of My Life
9. Coming Home
10. Conspiracy Of Science
11. Final Moment
