Label: Frontiers Music Srl.
Release date: March 18, 2022
Production: Jacob Hansen
Album length: 54.15 min
Genre: Hard Rock/Melodic Rock
Rating: 9.0/10
Pretty Maids released their last album “Undress Your Madness” in November 2019 – RockLine review. You’d normally expect at least one more new studio album by 2022. But the wheel of fate turns in its own way, and Ronnie Atkins, vocalist of this legendary Danish hard rock band, was diagnosed with lung cancer back while the last Pretty Maids album was being recorded. At first they thought they’d beaten it with countless rounds of chemo and radiation, but sadly it came back toward the end of 2020. Ronnie didn’t sit around twiddling his thumbs. He started putting together a crew for a solo album. And so, a little over a year ago, “One Shot” dropped – a thoroughly excellent first solo effort from the singer (RockLine review).
Anyone who figured that was Ronnie’s swan song got it wrong. The guy kept the same lineup of top-class Scandinavian musicians around him, and back in the “One Shot” days they wrote so much music that a pile of it was left ‘in reserve’. Then last October this crew also delivered the acoustic EP “4 More Shots (The Acoustics)”, while the successor to “One Shot” was already taking shape in its basic outlines.
“Make It Count” – Atkins’ second solo album, then – is the spitting image of its predecessor. It’s ten minutes longer, but otherwise there are no major differences. That’s perfectly logical and, given how it came about, pretty much a given. Two albums in a little over a year is no small feat. Two good ones in a row, and in a single year at that, is even harder to pull off. Musicality is not something he’s short on. He’s overflowing with it. The peaks of all that pomp and bombast are the choruses, brilliantly loaded with extra vocal harmonies, which is exactly what you need for the songs to grab you right away. On the first listen. Atkins shows no signs of vocal fatigue or wear and tear. His signature tone and approach are right here, front and center of everything, though quite a few of the tracks could have found their way onto some hypothetical Pretty Maids album (with different arrangements and production, of course). Still, this is a deeply personal album, at times with somewhat ‘softer’ arrangements and a bigger helping of keyboards, even though the guitar phrasing is absolutely the centerpiece of it all. That said, a ballad like Let Love Lead The Way wouldn’t have any business on a Pretty Maids album. The album closes with the excellent title track, which opens in the style of a chanson, or really just another ballad. In a way this song is heartbreaking, not only because of the arrangement but also because of its message, as it comes across like an epitaph. That’s what makes it the album’s one-of-a-kind high point! Atkins knew exactly why he wanted to put it at the very end of the new record.
On “Make It Count” too, the solo seasoning comes from masters of ‘six-string theory’: John Berg (Paralydium), Pontus Norgren (HammerFall) and Oliver Hartmann (Avantasia, Hartmann), while the lion’s share of shaping the songs and the album fell to Atkins’ Pretty Maids bandmate, Swedish multi-instrumentalist, producer and arranger Chris Laney.
The singles alone hinted that “Make It Count” would be another very good Atkins solo album. Blood Cries Out is one of the sharpest, fastest, yet utterly dramatic charges, with an intense melancholy woven into its bombastic chorus. This track pours oil on the fire in the second half of the album, right between the full-on ballad Let Love Lead The Way and the mid-tempo Easier To Leave (Than Being Left Behind), keeping the album strongly dynamic that way.
A good 54 minutes that are a must for all fans of Atkins’ voice and of the life and work of Pretty Maids – fans of highly musical stuff, the kind that the finely wound recipe of Scandinavian hard rock culture delivers, or let’s just say the tradition of Scandinavian melodic metal. Experience, inspiration, talent, a bag full of great ideas. It all shines with incredible intensity on this album too.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. I’ve Hurt Myself (By Hurting You)
2. Unsung Heroes
3. Rising Tide
4. Remain To Remind Me
5. The Tracks We Leave Behind
6. All I Ask Of You
7. Grace
8. Let Love Lead The Way
9. Blood Cries Out
10. Easier To Leave (Than Being Left Behind)
11. Fallen
12. Make It Count
Lineup:
Ronnie Atkins – vocals, backing vocals
Chris Laney – rhythm guitar, keyboards
Allan Sørensen – drums
Pontus Egberg – bass guitar
Morten Sandager – keyboards
Linnea Vikström Egg – backing vocals
John Berg – guitar, guitar solos
Olliver Hartmann – guitar, guitar solos
Pontus Norgren – guitar, guitar solos
Anders Ringman – acoustic guitar
