Artist: Gotthard
Label: Nuclear Blast
Release: 2009
Length: 48:32
Rating: 4.5/5
Considering that Gotthard albums land at intervals of no more than two years, it’s all the more fascinating that at this creative pace Gotthard never lose their spark, their creative hunger, or the common sense that keeps them making quick, smart decisions. They’re carriers of a clear vision, and they look at it with plenty of musical and artistic maturity. Today this band is a synonym for high self-confidence in the hard rock underground, a textbook example for everyone in the music showbiz who’d like to hold on to at least a shred of creative independence and still earn a buck or two along the way.
“Need To Believe” is a typical Gotthard record. On it, Gotthard steer through an expressive range they staked out themselves. This is Gotthard’s melodic hard rock turf, where there’s not much room for extra artistic free-spirited experimenting, progressive fragmentation and the like. Nope. Hard rock is bound by a template. If you use it with an approach all your own, you don’t have to fear the “gray mouse” label, the kind that just borrows from others and offers nothing of its own. Sure, there’s the danger of repeating yourself, and yet Gotthard always slip past that one too.
“Need To Believe” keeps an incredibly lively production feel, built on the sturdy guitar riffing of the Leoni/Scherrer duo and filled out by a harmonizing curtain of keyboards that often loves to slip into a warm “Hammond-ized” blanket – something the guys inherited from their old-school hard rock role models. With their masterful production, Gotthard create a three-dimensional sound, where the melodic figure is joined by a thundering rhythm line and thick, voluminous, nicely audible, warm and melodic bass lines that talk intensely with the commands of the drum fortress (e.g. the mid-tempo Break Away). The central figure of it all is once again singer Steve Lee, who doesn’t hide in his lines the fact that as a teenager he grew up inspired by Steven Tyler (Aerosmith). On “Need To Believe” too, Lee is the factor that contributes the most to the authenticity of the Gotthard sermon.
“Need To Believe” opens with the anthemic Shangri-La, with a dramatic build-up and a tightly chiseled Gotthard hard rock riff that peaks in an excellent melancholic chorus, where Lee is backed by skillfully crafted multi-part vocal harmonies. The middle section is a surprise: in the solo bridge Leoni veers into an oriental, Blackmore-style turn, followed by a transition whose soothing effect recalls a similar passage in Perfect Strangers, a classic by Deep Purple. After it, Gotthard keep crushing it at full strength in Unspoken Words, which is no less expressive than Shangri La and has similar chemistry, so you could easily swap the two on the album’s track list. Things get deadly serious when we hit the title track, which brings one of the album’s peaks. The atmospherically calm section before the chorus and the AOR-style melodically sculpted chorus that follows make for one of the album’s loveliest contrasting symbioses, one that’ll get under your skin in an instant. A breeze of Southern laid-back feel in harmonious acoustic manner drives Unconditional Faith, where fans of classic Bon Jovi will easily find themselves at home too. After it comes the uncompromising I Don’t Mind, powered by a rolling rhythm with the “sex appeal” of a cowbell layered on top. Cunningly thought out and extremely effective in shaking up the album’s dynamic flow! Rebel Soul, probably the fastest track on the album, plays a similar role just before the end, and it’ll surely tear your ears off! The first ballad only shows up at position no. 7. Gotthard have always been strong here, and Don’t Let Me Down doesn’t needlessly kill the album’s dynamics either. Lee is effectively subtle and delicate, which earns Gotthard another win on this album! Right From Wrong is also a return of the energy from the album’s opening tracks in the style of Shangri-La and Unspoken Words, with one of the strongest anthemic choruses on the record! I Know, You Know is an example of a song that would be perfect for radio rotation. It’s an old-school example of ideally combining lead motifs and putting the atmospheric peak in the chorus. As with the title track, I Know, You Know is a song with one of the loveliest contrasts between chorus and verse. The close of the album brings a breeze of melancholy and hidden longing in the feelings strung together by Lee’s vocals, combined with keyboards stepping in as a string quartet. Here Gotthard step on the gas one last time, turn the knobs up, and create yet another sweet-sounding contrasting shift between verse and chorus. These are the album’s strongest moments. Those atmospheric contrasts within individual songs.
With “Need To Believe” too, Gotthard remain a band that can’t and won’t fake it. They stay true to the legacy of the old-school hard rock craft, which they put to good use in developing and carrying on their own musical vision. “Need To Believe” isn’t as dark an album as its otherwise excellent predecessor “Domino Effect” (2007), but it has a predatory, snappy, highly turbulent atmosphere, saturated with the erogenous pulse of true-believer hard rock across 12 songs, written to fit all fans of this band like a glove, as well as devotees of the most authentic and classic hard rock tradition.
Lineup
Steve Lee – vocals
Leo Leoni – guitar
Freddy Scherer – guitar
Marc Lynn – bass guitar
Hena Habegger – drums, percussion
Production
Richard Chycki
Track list
1. Shangri-La
2. Unspoken Words
3. Need to Believe
4. Unconditional Faith
5. I Don’t Mind
6. Break Away
7. Don’t Let Me Down
8. Right from Wrong
9. I Know, You Know
10. Rebel Soul
11. Tears to Cry
12. Ain’t Enough*
*…bonus track
