Label: Frontiers Music Srl.
Release date: May 5, 2023
Production: Kip Winger
Album length: 56:22 min
Genre: Hard Rock / Art Rock
Rating: 9.0/10
Winger came back this May with a brand-new studio album. Their seventh. What’s it called? “Seven.” How else? Albums don’t exactly come easy to this band. But what keeps them from sinking into oblivion is the instantly recognizable name Winger earned with their first three classic records. That was a long time ago.
And Winger, a good thirty years later? They sound quite different from the days when surplus testosterone decided a whole lot about where the band’s career was heading. But the fact of how the band operates in the new millennium is that Kip Winger doesn’t rush into recording new material for no reason. If he doesn’t feel the creative itch, he keeps quiet. That’s the only right way to do it. Less is more. And “Seven,” which is finally here after a solid nine years since “Better Days Comn’” came out, follows the shift toward artistic maturity, whose decisive herald was already the album “Karma” (2009); its successor “Better Days Comin’” (2014) only confirmed that shift. So? Winger haven’t been glam metallers for ages, and they’re not hard rockers either. Nor are they a band hitching a ride on the old glory of those first three albums. That kind of pathos is out of the question for Kip Winger and the crew.
The last three albums, the latest “Seven” included, are therefore a rich and colorful blend of high-octane, heavily grooving art/hard rock that flirts shamelessly with progressive elements, while the songwriting, to keep things seductive and infectious, cleverly softens its sharp edges with pop-art-flavored rhetoric. Along the way, the album builds a wonderfully dynamic arc over its running time, with a heap of leaps from one mood to the next. There’s of course no shortage of a feel for pomp and drama-theater either, which hits its artistic peak in the album’s closing stretch, the superb mini-epic suite It All Comes Back Around. The punchy Proud Desperado, Heaven’s Falling or, a bit later, Resrrect Me are fiery, under-the-skin raiders with highly memorable choruses, which on the other hand gives the album its distinct charge and the rock punch it demands.
The result on the new album is once again a showcase of homegrown artistry, a unique and singular musical story that also confirms that the Kip Winger – Reb Beach tandem is not only essential to the band’s musical character, but that through its exploratory vision over the years it has made an incredible artistic leap in terms of expressive musical maturity.
The songs are polished down to the last detail and have it all. A level of musicality that creeps under your skin, Kip Winger’s recognizably throaty vocal (‘forte’) character, middle-eight passages seasoned with the masterstrokes of unique guitar grandmaster Reb Beach (those parts of the songs are a treat of their own kind within the compositions). The songs are built on strong motifs that clearly set the tracks apart from one another. Which means the songwriting knows no slip-ups and no awkward, irreconcilable artistic choices that would rob the album of its dynamism and the smooth flow of events.
“Seven” does boast a high level of musicality, culminating especially in the chorus melodies. It doesn’t lose the common thread for a second there. At the same time, the compositions are loaded with detail, with colorful transitional twists and jolts inside the middle-eight passages, and masterfully ‘extended’ with pre-choruses too, which demands a higher level of devotion from the listener. That means the album doesn’t get under your skin right away; it takes a few more spins. But like I said. It carries a homegrown artistic ID card and refuses ‘trivial solutions’ in songwriting, the kind that could give off a whiff of reheated leftovers or artistic decline into generic territory. A great album that fills you with pomp and punch, plus the mischief of creative inspiration (which “Seven” is positively bending under), keeps the listener constantly busy and reveals a pile of extra finesse and detail that’s part of this songwriting.
“Seven” is, in short, a top-notch achievement from a legendary band. Artistically, it’s a fully equal companion to its excellent predecessors “Better Days Comin’” (2014) and “Karma” (2009), and proof that Kip Winger and the gang aren’t letting up on delivering the best. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait a whole nine years for the next Winger album again.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. Proud Desperado
2. Heaven’s Falling
3. Tears Of Blood
4. Resurrect Me
5. Voodoo Fire
6. Broken Glass
7. It’s Okay
8. Stick The Knife In And Twist
9. One Light To Burn
10. Do Or Die
11. Time Bomb
12. It All Comes Back
Lineup:
Kip Winger – vocals, bass guitar, keyboards, acoustic guitar
Reb Beach – guitar, backing vocals
Rod Morgenstein – drums
Paul Taylor – keyboards, guitar
John Roth – guitar, backing vocals
