Artist: Place Vendome
Label: Frontiers Records
Release: 2009
Running time: 53.46
Rating: 4.5/5
Place Vendome is, Scandinavian scene aside, a hugely successful contribution to melodic hard rock, this time coming out of Germany. The backbone of the lineup is three members of Pink Cream 69: Dennis Ward (bass, and the album’s producer), Uwe Reitenauer (guitar) and Kosta Zafiriou (drums). Add Vanden Plas keyboardist – the seasoned Guenther Werno – and of course one of the most interesting voices in heavy music from the eighties onward, the moody ex-Helloween “Mr. Ego” singer Michael Kiske. If this weren’t a project, you’d basically get a photo negative of the Helloween lineup, with a former Pink Cream 69 singer at the mic.
The music for the new album comes from proven masters of writing melodic hard rock bangers: Robert Sall (Work Of Art), Magnus Karlsson (Primal Fear, Allen/Lande, The Codex,…), Torsti Spoof (Leverage) and Ronny Milianowicz (ex-Sinergy drummer). So it’s an interesting setup this time: Scandinavians write the music, Germans play it. And the new Place Vendome album doesn’t hide that for a second. The two biggest influences, the ones that decisively shape the style and the contrast that keeps the album interesting and dynamic from start to finish, are Karlsson and Sall. The opener Streets Of Fire is a faster, punchier banger that gets the record up to proper working temperature. It’s really the album’s first peak, perfectly armed with a melodically infectious, dramatic chorus. The touch of the keyboards and the melodies themselves undeniably grew in the garden of the hyperactive “wunderkind” Magnus Karlsson and could turn up on any Allen/Lande album, and right after it My Guardian Angel confirms that. It’s the typical melancholic Magnus Karlsson touch, which works like a proven winner in Michael Kiske’s vocal delivery. Full sound, compositional polish – Karlsson clearly can’t deny himself. Robert Sall, as the author of two songs on the album, offers an excellent “counterweight” this time, and Valerie and Follow Me make no secret of the American “west coast” AOR influences Sall used so distinctively on Work Of Art’s excellent debut “Artwork” (2008) – RockLine review HERE.
Believer could easily take over from Streets Of Fire as the album opener. It’s another heavier, faster track on an album written mostly at an atmospheric mid-tempo, and it flows beautifully, unfolding dynamically and getting under your skin from the very first listen. Judging by the prominent riff and the heavier riffing embrace, as well as the lead motifs and melodies, you could attribute it to Torsti Spoof, otherwise the guitarist of Finnish melodic hard rockers Leverage.
Kiske is a guarantee of maximum melodic payoff, which is exactly what a musician seeks in expression through songwriting. Definitely. Kiske is at his best when others put the lines in his mouth. Always. His solo albums are downright quirky and bland, and the guy is even harder to figure out when he publicly declares that he has no interest in heavy metal and heavier music and never really liked it. Place Vendome is Kiske in his finest expressive light, in other words the “Keeper era”!
Big anthemic melodies, highly dramatic chorus moods that take center stage in compact, melodically infectious songs, and choruses superbly dressed up with multi-part vocal harmonies. What matters most here is recognizability, with Kiske as the main Place Vendome factor establishing it!
Among the otherwise evenly strong melodic hard rock songs, with a significant AOR accent, I’d like to single out the closer I’d Died For You, which opens quite innocently in a ballad style, where Guenther Werno’s brilliance on keyboards comes through, until an explosive transition grows it into a closing solo “crescendo” that spins the album totally unpredictably to a whole new mood and brilliantly tops it off with such a finale. You could call it a song with a progressive flavor to end on!
Let’s put it this way. If you heard the 2005 “Place Vendome” debut (RockLine review HERE), you can’t go wrong with the new Place Vendome album either. Let me point out that Place Vendome are chasing the commercial train driven by the “Scandi phalanx” of melodic hard rock bands led by Brother’s Firetribe, Leverage and similar outfits. With seasoned old cats at the wheel, the whole thing is hugely convincing. A gem of fresh melodic polish and spectral fullness in a juicy sound. European style!
Lineup
Michael Kiske – vocals
Uwe Reitenauer – guitar
Guenther Werno – keyboards
Dennis Ward – bass
Kosta Zafiriou – drums
Production
Dennis Ward
Track list
1. Streets Of Fire
2. My Guardian Angel
3. Completely Breathless
4. Follow Me
5. Set Me Free
6. Believer
7. Valerie (The Truth Is In Your Eyes)
8. A Scene In Reply
9. Changes
10. Surrender Your Soul
11. Dancer
12. I’d Die For You
