Artist: Cornerstone
Label: Massacre Records
Release: 2007
Cornerstone – the brainchild of Danish melodic hard rock keyboardist Steen Mogensen and former Y.J.Malmsteen’s Rising Force/Rainbow screamer Doogie White, are back with their fourth studio album. No beating around the bush: this is music for everyone who misses Rainbow and old Deep Purple. The difference is that the keyboards have been brought up to date and bring in a trendy hard rock sound, the natural result of a logical “synthesizer up-date”. Of course there’s no shortage of warm hugs from the classic organ sound, because in this corner of the hard rock world you simply can’t go without it. Add to that the written riffs that at times really do sound as if the guitar god Ritchie Blackmore himself had come up with them, not to mention the pinpoint guitar transitions that, in their sanding down of long “slides”, groan as if Ritchie were pulling them out (Mother Of Mercy, the title track with its “Gates Of Babylon Rainbow-ish” arabesques), and then there’s the flawless execution from Doogie White, who makes no secret of his resemblance to Ronnie James Dio in tone, range and the way he approaches the melody of his verses. After all that, there’s not much “doctoring” left to do around “Two Tales Of One Tommorow” either. Not to mention the mysticism and occultism in the lyrics, inherited of course from none other than Mr. Dio.
The fourth album is also a classic continuation of the Cornerstone story. The songs are once again perfectly polished, both in production (the wound-up liveliness is hellishly emphasized) and in structure: compact, with cleverly crafted, grabby choruses that are naturally the atmospheric peaks of the songs, carefully added instrumental trimmings (melodic interludes, traditional guitar solos), a voluminous, prominent bass, multi-part vocal harmonies. In short, behind the production and composing wheel sit old, seasoned cats who don’t let you down at work. The variety of motifs and rhythms is in cheerful abundance, and the album boasts constant high dynamics and rolling shifts of mood.
So, going by all that, Cornerstone remain an excellent Rainbow clone (and will stay one) and a neat answer to where Rainbow might be musically today, if Ritchie had felt like it. Mogensen’s keyboards do bring a touch of Royal Hunt’s symphonic theatricality (Starlight And Mystery – Mogensen’s baroque solo, though for heaven’s sake Rainbow did that too), but the other ingredients are strongly subordinate to Rainbow’s influence, so this will be an album that all fans of the classic Blackmore Deep Purple plus Rainbow plus Dio approach will be happy with. And the closing high tragic drama of We Are The Dead will delight fans of the Black Sabbath Ronnie James Dio 1980 – 1982 era like cherries on top of a fruit sundae.
Interestingly, even after their fourth album Cornerstone remain underrated. They offer exceptional quality, fully dressed in the heritage of the classic seventies hard rock school, laced with the frills of more modern sound production, arrangements and keyboard tones. So where does the band’s chronic overlooked status come from? Today hard rock has certainly been pushed into the alternative and the masses couldn’t care less, and on top of that Cornerstone so obviously drive down the Rainbow track that, for all the high-quality persuasiveness of “Two Tales Of One Tommorow”, the harsh fact remains: if your ears happen to skip this album, you’ve practically missed nothing.
Lineup
Doogie White – vocals
Kasper Damgaard – guitar
Rune Brink – guitar
Steen Mogensen – keyboards, bass guitar
Allan Sorensen – drums
Production
Cornerstone
Tracklist
1. Misery
2. One Man’s Hell
3. Mother Of Mercy
4. Two Tales Of One Tomorrow
5. Prey
6. Blinded
7. Starlight And Mystery
8. The Dance
9. Wicked
10. We Are The Dead
Album length: 55.23
