Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Lizzy Borden
Label: Metal Blade Records
Release: 2018
Running time: 51:11
Rating: 4.5/5
»My Midnight Things« is the first studio album in eleven years from the long-running American metallers, or glam metallers (whichever you prefer), Lizzy Borden. Eleven years since its predecessor »Appointment With Death« (2007), or a stylistic return to what the band was doing in the late eighties? Yes. On the previous album Lizzy Borden were still metal through and through, and the record mostly sounded like classic metal. Old school, closer to the first two albums than to anything else they’ve tried in their career. Never mind the band’s look and stage antics, which go hand in hand with both the name and the themes of the lyrics, and which have always reflected a deep-rooted love of shock theater and therapy as Alice Cooper delivers it on stage, and Kiss too. Lizzy Borden used to land among the classic-sounding old-school American heavy metal bands rather than the glammers, even though the glam vibe slowly crept in over the albums »Visual Lies« (1987) and especially »Master Of Disguise« (1989). »My Midnight Things« leans on exceptional musicality, or rather builds on it. So pull »Master of Disguise« out of their archive and you’ll quickly figure out which album served as the »template« for the new one this time around.
Lizzy Borden created, sang, played and arranged the whole album himself, with only the drums handled by Joey Scott Harges, who also helped with the production. On »Master of Disguise« Lizzy was even dealing in a seven-octave range of vocal lines. They »rustled« around the album like a choir, and it felt like there was a pile of different vocalists coexisting in an unbelievably harmonious reinforcement of the album’s lavish pomp. »My Midnight Things« leans heavily on that album in this respect, and the opening title track points it out right away. What does that mean? That the new Lizzy Borden sound closer to glam metal than to classic heavy metal today, which, funny but true, actually suits the songs even better, along with their »horror« stage theatrics and makeup.
You may have guessed already, but the ten new numbers, picked by the man himself from a rich archive of demos with around fifty ideas to choose from, radiate exceptional musicality. Invasiveness, too. They grab you all at once. Right off the bat. This time around, though, Lizzy pushed the music into the background. The lyrics came first, and he developed the music slowly and tailored the arrangements, sensibly following the messages of the written words. The result is an ultra-catchy, musical album with the kind of bombast that today’s »Scandi« glam/sleaze and melodic rock »revival« bands like Crash Diet, Crazy Lixx, Hardcore Superstar, H.E.A.T. and a few others chase with the zeal of an obsessive addict. Considering how painfully long Lizzy Borden spent polishing this album, all the songs are equal in expression and character, and extremely strong in what they say. In arrangements and vocal delivery too. But Lizzy Borden is a man of the generation that those revivalists look up to. The stuff that inspires the younger generation runs in his veins, so this album carries that hypnotic magnetism of rawness that revivalism simply can’t produce, and that’s the main difference between the bands of the eighties and today’s revivalists. So alongside all that ultra-bombastic melodizing, »My Midnight Things« also has a pile of dark and obscure moments, a touch of the occult, and a hefty dose of the classic American old-school metal of high-octane sonic rage. This is Lizzy Borden’s expressive »primal ancestry«, which is now reflected through the new album »My Midnight Things«.
The album “My Midnight Things” has three exceptional moments that are a major lever in keeping the listener firmly glued to it. From start to finish. The first peak is the opening title track right away, then (in the middle of the album) the especially brilliant The Perfect Poison, which as a composition deserves a very special place in the whole Lizzy Borden discography, and the closing beauty We Belong To The Shadows. These three tracks combine all the elements of Lizzy Borden’s musical essence. The arrangement of Our Love Is God is the only noticeable moment of experimentation on the new album, and it would fit extremely well in an »industrial alt and gothic« metal makeover, if Marilyn Manson were to take on a rework.
And stylistically, Lizzy’s eternal inspiration from the legacy of classic hard rock pioneers shines through the new album, like Queen, Slade, Cheap Trick (backed by a rock’n’roll character in The Scar Across My Heart and/or Run Away With Me), The Beatles and Alice Cooper. Every composition is still commanded by Lizzy Borden’s strikingly distinctive vocals, which after all these years are still unbelievably explosive and authoritative, crystal clean and clear, comparable to the voices of generational contemporaries like Geoff Tate in his golden days with Queensryche and/or John Arch (Fates Warning)
»My Midnight Things« is definitely (artistically speaking) the most mature album of Lizzy Borden’s entire career, and the admirers and fans of this band will no doubt be thrilled with it. An extremely strong achievement, and let’s hope it brings Lizzy Borden back to European stages soon. It deserves a proper live celebration too!
Lineup
Lizzy Borden – vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards
Joey Scott Harges – drums
Production
Joey Scott Harges
Track list
01. My Midnight Things
02. Obsessed with You
03. Long May They Haunt Us
04. The Scar Across My Heart
05. A Stranger to Love
06. The Perfect Poison
07. Run Away with Me
08. Our Love is God
09. My Midnight Things (Reprise)
10. We Belong to the Shadows
