Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Jaded Heart
Label: Frontiers Records
Release: 2009
Duration: 52:26
Rating: 4/5
Jaded Heart’s recent buddying up with Primal Fear, oh… and by the way, both bands are signed to the same label, has clearly left its mark on the look of “Perfect Sanity,” the new Jaded Heart album. In the nineties Jaded Heart were known for some sophisticated, polished arrangements, which at times particularly enthusiastic folks liked to label as a sort of German Def Leppard – that’s the era with singer Michael Bormann – and they’ve clearly decided to move away from that in a serious way and cut the cord with that period. The albums “Helluva Time” (2005) and “Sinister Mind” (2007) hinted at these departures, toward a livelier and more direct production, with much more forward-pointing guitars on one side and a rhythm section to match on the other.
Today, with both founding members – the Bormann brothers – long gone from the lineup, and with the band having made peace with the fact that they’ll apparently never get over the threshold of obscurity and that they remain horrendously and totally unfairly overlooked, they clearly don’t want to fret anymore about whether anyone’s picking up the scent or not. The albums stay excellent, the band keeps showing up on stages, and still, when you mention the name Jaded Heart, everyone just gives you a weird look. Regardless of the fact that the guys have sharpened up the guitars in the sound, regardless of the fact that there are more typical heavy metal elements on the new record than ever before, Jaded Heart remain faithful to following the ideal melodic track in the lead motifs, especially the choruses, which have kept their pompous arena-sized hooks. Yes. Fahlberg’s vocals are still dressed in a juicy wrapping of backing-vocal harmonies, and the guys don’t slack in this department, keeping the quality level of past releases. In this respect, others can still only learn from them.
But there’s something you can feel. Guitarist Peter Östros takes up and fills with his guitar quite a bit more space than there was on “Sinister Mind.” “Perfect Sanity” is only the second album by the band with Östros in the lineup. The guy has dressed the songs with some harmonic embellishments of three-part harmonies, typical of classic heavy metal expression and which power metal bands today obligatorily wear out in their sermons. Equally surprising is how he’s configured some of the transitions and especially, above all, the solos, which don’t hide that Östros is a typical guitarist of the Swedish school and likes to take on even the speed and melodic classicism of Y.J. Malmsteen (Freedom Call, Hell Just Arrived). Much more openly and directly than on “Sinister Mind.” The cuttingly sharp riffs are magnified by the keyboards, which are markedly pushed to the back burner and which the ear usually only catches in the openings of songs. When Axel Kruse joins in at certain points (Love Is A Killer) with his rally on the double bass drum pedals, the thing turns almost dangerously power-metal-possessed. The hardest album of Jaded Heart’s career? Yes. In line with the band’s own predictions.
The typical hard rock framework, for instance, is fully preserved by Come To The Feast, a mid-tempo, solid rhythm with an emphasized sonic volume taken up by the bass guitar, which in a different production could have sounded salvational, arena-sized, even AOR-ish. This is a rocker the band absolutely has to put on its live setlist. It smells retro hard rock, with a live, raw production of the guitar riff. A similar moment is captured in Tonight too.
Fahlberg remains an excellent building block of the new Jaded Heart look. His singing carries, in its lines, mild melodic leanings toward B. Dickinson, and even the throatiness of someone like A. B. Franck (Brainstorm).
With the new album, Jaded Heart once again know exactly what they’re doing. It’s hugely gratifying to realize that this album is a copy of none of the band’s previous ones. The band has kept its exceptional knack for creating infectious melodic hooks that get under your skin from the first listen. At the same time, they held back in absolutely nothing in the studio when it comes to loudness and liveliness. The production is typically German, which suits a German band of the Jaded Heart caliber, where arena bombast and raw aggression happily shake hands. With the new album, Jaded Heart rank among the favorites of fans of bands like Pink Cream 69, with a distinct sense of melody but also toxically cranked-up guitars. “Perfect Sanity” is winning over new fans, too! The album is especially likely to catch the attention of fans of European (I’d rather say German) power metal, who get fired up for bands like Edguy. Hard rock stays, but in a freshened-up, new cloak. “Perfect Sanity” is a Jaded Heart album from head to toe. Mission accomplished. Offering something different, yet staying yourself and true to yourself. In everything!
Lineup
Johan Fahlberg – vocals
Pete Östros – guitar
Henning Wanner – keyboards
Michael Mueller – bass guitar
Axel Kruse – drums
Production
Michael Voss, Chris Lausmann & Dennis Ward
Track List
1. Intro
2. Love is a Killer
3. Fly Away
4. Blood Stained Lies
5. Tonight
6. Freedom Call
7. One Life One Death
8. Rising
9. Hell Just Arrived
10. Psycho Kiss
11. Come to the Feast
12. Exterminated
