Label: Frontiers Music Srl.
Release date: 6/17/2022
Production: Iconic
Album length: 47.52 min
Genre: Hard Rock
Rating: 8.0/10
Iconic are the new super rock sensation, fronted by guitarists Michael Sweet (Stryper) and Joel Hoekstra (Whitesnake), Marco Mendoza (ex-Whitesnake, ex-Thin Lizzy, ex-The Dead Daisies), drummer Tommy Aldridge (Whitesnake) and singer Nathan James (Inglorious).
The brains behind this new lineup, which looks more than impressive on paper, is the Italian label Frontiers Music Srl., which, let’s be honest, has been overdoing these kinds of moves a bit in the last few years. Not all of them work out, so you have to put the individual-level excitement on the back burner and put your senses up front, because quite a few of these manufactured projects the label has masterminded just water down or bring more disappointment than any kind of artistic breakthrough, like soup reheated for the millionth time.
Well, Iconic are one of the brighter spots in that respect. I’d say the musicians who landed here are the ones who didn’t end up in the Black Swan project. That goes above all for the two current Whitesnake guitarists. If Reb Beach landed in Black Swan, then Joel Hoekstra is in Iconic. And having a songwriter of Michael Sweet’s caliber by your side always means a winning poker hand of aces. That goes for Iconic’s debut too.
No need to say that this album will please all the fans of the bands the project members come from. At times the album pulls in a Whitesnake direction (Ready For Your Love), while Sweet’s vocal showcase on the opener Run (As Fast As You Can) is no surprise at all, since it carries more of the melodic heavy metal traits known from his songwriting in Stryper. Running ‘through thick and thin’ is also the theme of Nowhere To Run, a kind of crossbred tightrope walker between Whitesnake and Stryper, which is even bold and fun, and at the same time gives the project its own distinct outline.
One of the best moves that pulls the quintet away from generic territory is the guaranteed vocal contrast, brought by the strikingly high, ultra-musical voice of Sweet on one side, and the full-bodied, slightly raspy, lower-pitched voice of Inglorious singer Nathan James on the other. So yes. On one side, James’s vocal color deepens the bluesy, soulful elements in the songs, which carries Iconic more into hard rock territory (e.g. All About or Worlds Apart), while Sweet’s vocal charisma, recognizable from a mile away, works especially well in the more ‘fired-up’ numbers, where things on the album bristle up in a metallic way. Even in the shared vocal lines, the two singers deliver an enviable contrast, which is very good, pleasing and fundamentally very much welcome.
Hoekstra is a brilliant soloist, and it’s a pleasure to listen to his playful escapes into ultra-sonic details of devilishly virtuosic guitar escapades. There’s no point wasting words on the rhythm section. Piercing, potent and above all set in a phenomenal production-and-sound contrast, both with the vivid and inventive phrases of sparkling guitar seasoning and, of course, with the two lead vocals. James takes the vocal initiative on the album.
The album “Second Skin” grabs and grips with everything it’s got: virtuous, credible and thoroughly confident. You have to keep in mind the incredible mileage of the project’s members, where, when it comes to songwriting and production moves, absolutely everything is clear. There can be no flubs. Not only that. There must not be any. The combination of the project’s five members brings, above all, a vivid mix of the idioms of their parent bands, tilted in favor of the strongly musical elements of the first wave of classic hard rock, which was also the basic aim of this musical ‘experiment’ on the part of Frontiers Music Srl. So, yes. Fans of melodic moves in hard rock and heavy metal absolutely have to check out Iconic, especially fans of Whitesnake and Inglorious. That doesn’t mean the album doesn’t carry a good dose of predictability, especially the ballad-oriented Let You Go, but all in all, when you add it all up, it ‘holds water’.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. Run (As Fast As You Can)
2. Ready For Your Love
3. Second Skin
4. All I Need
5. Nowhere To Run
6. Worlds Apart
7. All About
8. This Way
9. Let You Go
10. It Ain’t Over
11. Enough Of Your Love
Lineup:
Nathan James – vocals
Michael Sweet – guitar, vocals
Joel Hoekstra – guitar
Marco Mendoza – bass guitar
Tommy Aldridge – drums
Guest musician:
Alessandro Del Vecchio – keyboards, backing vocals
