Artist: Ace Frehley
Album: Anomaly
Worth Buying: All but three songs
You will be interested in this album if you are a fan of: Ace Frehley, Kiss, 70’s lighter progressive rock bands like Styx, and Queen.
Tell me more: Upfront, I will start by saying that Ace Frehley was, and is a huge influence on my own guitar playing. I’ve always liked his phrasing, I’ve always liked the way he textures songs. I’ve also often referred to him as the BB King of Hard Rock, because like BB, his playing often demonstrated that it’s not so much what you play but how you phrase it.
If you doubt me, listen to the harmonized guitar solo from “Detroit Rock City” from his Kiss days. It is an amazing exercise in the power of phrasing and melody over ferocious speed.
It’s been a long time since Ace did a solo album. Being a Frehley fan I was naturally excited to hear his latest. I was also naturally going into it wanting to like it.
...And I did.....but......well, I'll just come out and say it. I didn't care for the first three songs. Those first three songs, where to me, just average heavy metal songs and not worth recommending.
I always listen to everything at least 3 times before I make up my mind, so after more than three listens I just simply took those 1st three songs off my ipod.
Now a lot of people in the music business cry foul to this,. "This is the problem with ipods and digital music" they say. The artist didn't want their music to be heard this way. And while this is certainly not the way the artist wanted me to hear their album, it's nothing new. And it's nothing to do with ipods, or digital formats. Back in the days of vinyl, if there was a song that I didn't like, I would lift the needle up and go to the next one. When cassettes came along, I would tape my albums and hit pause to edit out the songs I didn't want to hear.
So with three songs less I listened again to Anomaly (9 songs): Now The album kicks off with a fun remake of Sweet’s “Fox On The Run” and follows into a 70’s style bit of progressive rock entitled “Genghis Kahn”. Genghis Kahn starts as an acoustic instrumental before combining Indian influences with straight ahead Hard Rock. It’s an interesting combination because the song Rocks, but is chill. These two songs now set the stage for the rest of the album as it bounces back and forth from straight forward rockers like “Too Many Faces” and “Sister”, to more 70’s tinged progressive style rock like “A Little Below The Angels” and “Fractured Quantum”.
In “A little Below the Angels”, Ace gets as close as he ever has to writing a folk song (And I mean that in a good way). It is confessional and personal song where he comes clean about his frailties and past indiscretions before finding solace in the fact that we all fall short of angels.
If you love and miss that 70’s Rock sound (and I mean Rock) you are going to like this album. It will remind you of the time when bands that rocked played with different colors on their albums. Sometimes tacking big ideas and musical themes but always coming back just making fun straight ahead white boy Rock! Yes, I didn’t care for three songs on it, but you might feel differently. 9 songs out of 12 is not a bad batting average. And I have enjoyed and kept albums who’s averages where certainly a lot lower than this angel of an album.
TJR 02/17/10
What about the packaging? This CD has some of the most unique packaging ever. The CD case folds into cool display pyramid….and you also get a mini poster
Listen to samples and get Anomaly in the mp3 format
Get it on CD here
It's on vinyl too
1 comment: