Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Kick
Label: Escape Music
Release: 2013
Duration: 51:38
Rating: 4.5/5
In mid-September this year, the comeback album from the excellent British AOR outfit Kick came out digitally via iTunes. We’ll have to wait a little longer for the real, physical CD, which lands on Monday, November 11, 2013 via Escape Music Records, when the »tangible« version finally arrives. I can say just one thing: welcome home, boys. Without Nick Workman, which is a bit of a shame, but the man decided not to devote himself to Kick this time around, since the success of his new band Vega comes with too many obligations. So he chose to focus only on Vega. The album »Memoirs« was originally meant to be a solo studio album from Kick’s main driving force, bassist and chief songwriter Mickey Jones. In the end, though, he changed his mind. Almost ten years have passed since the last Kick album, »New Horizon« (2004).
The long wait was softened a bit by the release of »Megalomania« by the WildKard project in 2007. That album came out exactly 10 years after it was made, and it features the Jones brothers and Nick Workman, so it’s material from before Kick got going. Mickey Jones’ 2006 solo studio effort (»The Light Of Day«) also helped air out Kick’s long stretch of inactivity.
You could say nothing at all has changed with Kick. »Memoirs« carries on the tradition of the band’s first three studio albums. It boasts excellent production and a great arrangement of all the building blocks of the sound. It’s a symbiosis of roaring guitars, masterfully weighed down by keyboards – blankets of synths – slyly set in contrast, in a sonic leveling-out, with the beefy, rock-solid form of the rhythm section. So the one element that brings change is Mickey Jones’ voice. Workman’s voice is bright, far more impulsive in building up power, and more effective at maximizing the bombast of the leading chorus melodies, and it breezes through even the most demanding registers. Mickey’s voice is a little darker, and the man makes up for the shortfall in the vocal qualities of Workman described above by leaning heavily on a throaty grit. His voice is mildly cheeky, mildly nasal, yet it still meets the standard of top-tier melodic character that this album demands. Comparisons are possible with Jon Bon Jovi on one side, Klaus Lessmann (Bonfire), and even Ratt singer Stephen Pearcy or the godfather of shock therapy, Alice Cooper (Mickey’s vocal color carries a note of »boyish mischief«). Where a softer approach is needed, he even comes close to Darrell Wharton (Dare) – the song Words Of Advice, for instance. In short, this album doesn’t lack a single thing vocally. But given the different vocal approach, it simply radiates a different vibe and a different energy than it would with Nick Workman. It definitely wouldn’t have had that dark edge.
So »Memoirs« is carved out in the tradition of the British approach to AOR. It has a seriously cranked-up production and there’s nothing to complain about on that front. The guitars pull the wagons forward venomously and leave no prisoners behind! Don’t forget that we’re staying in the realm of AOR and melodic rock here. You can’t miss the songwriting style inherited from the virtues of eighties Def Leppard (again, Words Of Advice for example, plus Never Lost That Feeling), with all the refined coloring of the chorus melodies through backing vocal harmonies and the typical »mid-eight« bridge before the final chorus. At the same time, with its 11 songs, the album is an extremely varied adventure from a songwriting standpoint and doesn’t bore for even a second. There are no filler tracks on it. Three bonus tracks are tacked onto the end, and they don’t reach the quality of the album’s leading 11 songs, but that’s exactly why they carry the »bonus« label. And so »Memoirs« counts as a very compact and meticulously polished piece of work, where it’s hard to find a songwriting slip-up. Mickey Jones’ solo studio album »The Light Of Day«, released in 2006, already earned a heap of great reviews, and given the brilliant content of the new Kick album »Memoirs«, the musician has more than obviously held on to a big creative spark in these new times too. The closing track Nothing More To Say counts as one of the creative peaks of »Memoirs« and is first-rate proof that Mickey Jones knows exactly how to close an album in grand style.
As long as Mickey keeps creating seductive rock ‘n’ roll riffs like the one captured in the »Boston-style« The Future Ours, it’s clear that the story of Kick’s musical perfection is nowhere near over. Let’s just hope the band manages to »swim up from the bottom« of commercial obscurity and serve up a tour of the old continent, or at least land a spot on the bill of some higher-profile hard rock festival next year. »Memoirs« more than deserves to be played on concert stages. To lovers of perfect melodic polish and grabby pomp that gives you instant goosebumps, in short, to all AOR fanatics, I’m begging you from the bottom of my heart: you have to check this one out. Nick Workman or not. Jones’ voice filled the gap beautifully on »Memoirs« and saved the album! And along with it, Kick. I’ll say it once more. Welcome home again, boys!
p.s.: If you honestly ask me which song on “Memoirs” is my personal favorite, I’d instantly nominate Thrill Seeking Junkie for president of the Republic of Slovenia! “Vennnnnomously” infectious from the first second to the last. The kind of track that would’ve become an evergreen hit if it had been made in the eighties.
Lineup
Mickey Jones – vocals, bass guitar
Chris Jones – guitar
Olli Cunningham – keyboards
Benjy Reid III. – drums
Production
Mickey Jones & Chris Jones
Tracklist
1. Doesn’t Take Much
2. Thrill Seeking Junkie
3. Radio
4. Come Back
5. Urban Refugee
6. Round & Round
7. Words Of Advice
8. Highway To The Sun
9. The Futures Ours
10. Never Lost That Feeling
11. Nothing More To Say
12. The Miracle*
13. Devoted?
14. From This Day On*
*… bonus tracks
