Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: H.E.A.T.
Label: Ear Music Records
Release: 2015
Runtime: 67:26
Rating: 4.5/5
H.E.A.T are famous for their killer live shows! “Live In London” is the band’s first officially released live document, recorded mostly at the London club “The Garage”, where H.E.A.T. played on May 16, 2014, during their first headlining tour of Europe! The material was mixed by Grammy-winning, seasoned producer Tobias Lindell, and the live recording packs 15 hard-hitting anthems.
The Swedes of H.E.A.t. are right now considered one of the best melodic rock bands around, or let’s just call them a revivalist hard rock outfit, one that builds its vocabulary on the look and feel of eighties AOR and hard rock bands. In that sense they’re the rightful heirs to the legacy of the Scandinavian hard rock scene of the eighties and nineties. Scandinavia never lost its feel for melodic rock, and not even the grunge rot, which never really sank its teeth into the region, managed to kill it off. On the tour this live document comes from, the band was presenting its fourth studio album overall, »Tearing Down the Walls« (2014). On that record H.E.A.T. polished their style down to the last detail and got close to a creative zenith. Plenty of glowing music reviews singing the album’s praises back that up. H.E.A.T. are literally hot in every sense of the word these days! Their shows are a gripping piece of rock theater, with scenes unfolding in the heart of the adrenaline rush and eruptive voltage that the band’s gigs are charged with. Had H.E.A.T. shown up in the eighties, they’d be filling arenas and stadiums. No doubt about it. Vocalist Erik Grönwall knows how to put a spell on the crowd with a fantastic, clean, melodically polished and commanding approach, as well as an insanely energetic stage show in which the hyperactive singer can’t stand still for even a split second. His vocals are stunning across the release, as Grönwall breezes through every last part of the vocal range, however demanding. Effortlessly. The quintet’s Swedish perfectionism is the winning card in the band’s musical file. What’s committed to the record, then, is a superbly played show that went through little, very little, studio touch-up afterward.
If you’re a fan of the melodic side of hard rock, of eighties AOR, and above all of the Scandinavian way of doing things in this school of rock, then this album is also a highly recommended entry point into the world of H.E.A.T., if you don’t know them yet. It touches on the band’s catalog retrospectively too, but of course the set list favors the album »Tearing Down the Walls«, which is only right, since it’s the band’s strongest release to date.
The stallions never run out of dynamite over the nearly seventy minutes this record delivers. What kind of seekers of the perfect melody H.E.A.T. are is announced by the opening chorus of the outrageously catchy Point of No Return (or, toward the end, the song Emergency), while the perfect ballad Downtown proves we have absolutely nothing to fear for the future of the classic AOR legacy. Fans of the band surely already own »Live in London«. I’d say this is an album where H.E.A.T. come across even more convincing than in the studio, and the songs grab harder and crawl further under your skin than the studio originals. That realization is the tipping point on the scale that puts H.E.A.T., among today’s bands in a genre of fierce competition, right at the very top of the league.
Lineup
Erik Grönwall – vocals
Eric Rivers – guitar
Jona Tee – keyboards
Jimmy Jay – bass
Crash – drums
Production
Tobias Lindell
Tracklist
1. Point Of No Return
2. A Shot At Redemption
3. Better Off Alone
4. 1000 Miles
5. It’s All About Tonight
6. Inferno
7. The Wreckoning / Tearing Down The Walls
8. Mannequin Show
9. Late Night Lady
10. In And Out Of Trouble
11. Downtown
12. Enemy In Me
13. Emergency
14. Breaking The Silence
15. Living On The Run
