Artist: Pretty Maids
Label: Frontiers Records
Release: 2010
Runtime: 50:04
Rating: 4.3/5
The twelfth studio album (we can safely say that by now) from Danish hard rock veterans Pretty Maids is another top-quality achievement that’ll help swell the CD shelves of their loyal fanbase, while it definitely won’t win any new hordes of listeners over to their side. Pretty Maids have never put out a bad album in their career. Why would they start with “Pandemonium”? It keeps right on delivering that guaranteed-quality constant.
Quality-wise, it doesn’t lag behind the most celebrated Pretty Maids releases of the eighties, like “Future World”, but a lot has changed since then. The generation that went euphorically nuts for Pretty Maids in the eighties has grown up, and these days they don’t go nuts when Pretty Maids drop a new album. Another factor in why these excellent Danes remained somewhat overshadowed on the rock horizon is that they never managed to get an evergreen hit onto the market in the eighties or the early nineties. Hypothetically, all the better, since that slightly lower commercial “relevance” kept pushing them to the fringes of attention (even if the Danes were far from unnoticed in their career) and probably egged them on to stick to their guns. The danger of going “soft” and experimenting, and with it “adapting to novelties”, which in the end only ever served up one more thankless proof that a band is aging and being eaten alive by a midlife crisis, is a total stranger to the Pretty Maids tradition! And if we pull back one more curtain on this story, we can’t exactly say the same about some studio “pranks” from bands of similar standing, like Scorpions or Bon Jovi or Def Leppard or Europe. The next thing that kept the lineup from breaking through to commercial success is the fact that they didn’t offer enough of a spectacle. Not in terms of musical recognizability, and not the kind that would make them stand out through looks, manners and/or personality. Despite staking out their own turf and style, that style was still not “removed” enough and had less mass appeal And quality, which we can’t deny in this case, counts for nothing if you can’t squeeze out a mass-market evergreen. If you go through the eighties, the golden years of hard rock, the way Pretty Maids did, then sadly it counts for nothing.
Anyway, to stop “mikastiti” biblical sermons from our forefathers about what would have been if it had been and so on… let’s focus on “Pandemonium” instead. It’s an interesting album. On it, Pretty Maids show their hard-rock trademarks, which more or less falls within what you’d expect from a new album. On the other hand, a lot of moments have crept into individual songs on the new album that, with a more controlled and polished production, could have delivered a proper AOR hit earthquake in some other (sadly bygone) times.
We get that confirmation right away from the contrast between the opening title track and the one that follows, I.N.V.U. The first is the expected high-wound wrecking ball the Danes kick their new album off with, powered by an excellent, vampire-alive production of rasping guitars and Atkins’ “menacing” vocals, which attack with full force through his signature throaty approach. In I.N.V.U., though, unlike the punch and metalized relentlessness of the opener, there’s a sparkling sense for stringing together perfect lead melodies. Atkins’ clean delivery underlines this, deepening that vividly felt contrast in vibe and atmosphere between the two songs, and I.N.V.U. clings to the AOR label. To make the shock therapy even more impressive, there’s Little Drops Of Heaven, the first candidate for the winner if we had to measure how infected the new album’s songs are with AOR elements. The chorus is a new peak that slips under your skin instantly and irreversibly. A polished melodic combination that rings in your ears for a long time, with Atkinson’s sensual, clean vocals at its center. For all the bleeding hearts of this world! Across the whole album, Atkins proves with his vocal chameleonism why, before Pretty Maids came to be, they were a band that played covers of rock giants like Thin Lizzy, Led Zeppelin, Kiss, Slade,…
The use of synthesizers also contributes enormously to this feeling of AOR-ness on “Pandemonium”. The synth sound is traditional and conjures up the charm of the eighties. Let me be blunt. Between the Norwegian “new wave synth pop” entertainers A-HA of the eighties and our buddies Pretty Maids, there’s no real difference in this use of synthesizers. It’s just engraved into a different genre and so ends up playing a completely different role. Morten Sandager, who became a permanent member of the band with this album, played a key role on the record in coaxing out these AOR moments.
If you’re looking for a skillful middle path between direct punch and building a lofty atmosphere through well-crafted melodic motifs, you could easily find it in the mid-tempo One World One Truth and the song after it, Final Day Of Innoncence. The latter, in its intro and outro synth motifs, suspiciously nods to one of the best-known intro motifs ever created in rock history: the opening of Baba O’Riley (The Who).
So that things don’t drift too dangerously toward “softness” and/or (God forbid) “teary-subtle emotional gushing”, the most wound-up song on the album, Cielo Drive, steps in right in the middle and will rouse even all the winter hibernators from their sleep with no brakes, led by the bears of Kočevje! In a perfectly shaped, compact composition with a flinty, shoving contrast between verse and chorus, Atkins’ relentlessness in the chorus line “Hell… Tonight… No One Left Alive!” really shines. That dramatic moment is absolutely essential. And at points like this it works fantastically. Not only do Pretty Maids know this, they pull it off in the studio with ease! Then there’s the dark It Comes At Night, followed by the excellent, semi-acoustic, ballad-leaning Old Enough To Know. What a meaningful title that song carries when you need to quickly dig up evidence for the undeniable quality of the latest studio creations from these experience-armed Danes, who’ve kept creatively ripening through the years. Even in the most personal, confessional moment of the album, the quality of “Pandemonium” doesn’t let up.
The album rolls along satisfyingly in a highly vibrant mood, painted by an exceptionally dynamic unfolding of events. Thanks to a set of songs that differ from one another in their lead motifs, along with a picturesque progression of moods and a subdued sense of spontaneity, “Pandemonium” is another top-notch Pretty Maids album. With it the band won’t shift continents on this planet or disprove Einstein’s theory of relativity. But it’s something. Pretty Maids haven’t said their last word and are hammering ahead at full steam! The album closes with two highly atmospheric, mid-tempo songs, Beautiful Madness and then Breathless, which, thanks to its infectiously crafted chorus, comes very close to the AOR feel of Final Day Of Innocence.
What is there even left to say in wrapping up this piece? “Pandemonium” is another excellent Pretty Maids album, one that slightly surprises with its expressive emphasis on the band’s subtler side. There’s less edge and metallic destruction than we expected, but on the other hand, the album’s creators’ innate sense for expressing infectious choruses, packed with melodic payoff, sparkles all the more. And with atmospheric peaks in the choruses, the album’s much-needed sense of finely tuned high drama grows gratifyingly. This is a new and different Pretty Maids album, yet still 100% a Pretty Maids album, one that belongs in the league of the highest-quality melodic hard rock releases of this year. Do yourself a favor and scrape together a few euros, because “Pandemonium” undoubtedly rewards fans of the core principles of the melodic hard rock tradition.
Lineup
Ronnie Atkins – vocals
Ken Hammer – guitar
Morten Sandager – keyboards
Kenn Jackson – bass
Allan Tschicaja – drums
Production
Jacob Hansen
Tracklist
1. Pandemonium (5:21)
2. I.N.V.U (4:56)
3. Little Drops Of Heaven (4:37)
4. One World One Truth (4:18)
5. Final Day Of Innocence (4:16)
6. Cielo Drive (3:52)
7. It Comes At Night (4:16)
8. Old Enough To Know (4:15)
9. Beautiful Madness (4:03)
10. Breathless (4:00)
11. It Comes At Night (Remix)*
*…. bonus track
