[Heeplist] Trouble review

[Stan From Home]

Tapio,
Thanks for the excellent detailed review, I'm really looking forward to when this CD arrives. My son has installed a new stereo and speakers in my truck, and the sound is awesome, just right for Heepin'!!!

Stan

> On Oct 9, 2013, at 8:04 AM, Tapio Minkkinen <tapio at uriah-heep.fi> wrote:
> 
> I received the CD yesterday and here's a review after playing the album 4 - 5 times through:
> 
> KEN HENSLEY & LIVE FIRE: TROUBLE
> 
> READY TO DIE - Powerful opening, chorus reminds a bit of Playing To Win by Little River Band. One of my favourite songs on the CD. There?s some great guitar work by Ken Ingwersen all through the song and the solo.
> 
> TROUBLE - The lines in the lyrics like "Trouble with my bicycle, trouble with my hair", "Trouble, trouble, trouble" etc. sound a bit stupid at first listen but I like this song more now that I've heard it a few times. There's similar kind of slower and partly instrumental section in the middle like on "The Curse" on Faster. The first song is more guitar driven and I can't hear much Hammond but on this song keyboards are more up on the mix and there's a very nice solo in the end.
> 
> IT - There's a great build up in the beginning: It starts with some nice bass lines and then the drums and guitars come in, then Ken comes in. This song is more peaceful and melodic than the first two and the main thing that carries it through is Ken's Hammond, the melody that the plays reminds a bit of of "One Tender Moment" on A Glimpse Of Glory. The song is seven minutes long of which the last four minutes are instrumental and Ken's soloing on Hammond is fantastic, he really lets loose here and it's great that this kind of thing is included on a studio CD when usually it's only concerts where you hear keyboard solos like this. This part with is my favourite on the CD and and the three first songs are all among my favourites but after that the quality unfortunately drops a bit.
> 
> TODO LOCO - A bit dull, I wouldn't say it's a bad song but it's not that interesting - starting from the title that means in English "Everything is crazy". It starts slowly with first just guitar and keyboards and then vocals. After a while it becomes more powerful and gets heavier but the chorus is a bit let down, if the chorus was better this would be more enjoyable as there's some good parts.
> 
> I WANNA GO BACK - This is also nothing special, just an uptempo melodic pop rock song. The lyrics seem to  be about all the girls Ken has "met" along his tours over the years. Considering he is married now and been together with his wife for over ten years this seems a strange topic to a song but I guess it's natural to long back to the old days.
> 
> PLEASE EXPLAIN - This is again one of my favourites. This is similar to "Beyond The Starz" on Faster, it begins with only Hammond and then there's the same kind of hypnotic feel to the song and there's a good strong chorus. I really like this one, probably my nr. favourite at the moment.
> 
> YOU WILL ALWAYS BE MINE - This is the first of the ballads on the album. This song actually was created originally back in 2009 here in Finland at Ken's songwriting class the first Easy Livin' In Salo event together with those who attended it. Lyrics and melodies were mostly written by Finnish Heep fan Liisa Tolonen but I don't think much was left of that to this finished version. There was a video clip in Youtube recorded when this song was performed for the first time after it was written, I can try and find that so I can compare these two versions. This is a typical Hensley ballad and its OK but somehow it doesn't appeal to me that much, Ken has written some better ballads during his solo career, for example "I Cry Alone" on the previous album.
> 
> I DON'T KNOW - A peaceful beginning with just keyboards and vocals, a slower tempo and lighter more melodic song but there's still some power. In the end there's something I don't remember hearing on any Hensley record: A spoken word part. I have never liked these kind of things on songs and it would have been better if this hadn't been included but still the song itself is among the better songs on the cd.
> 
> DANGEROUS DESIRE - It's good to have this kind of faster and more rocking song at the end to lift things up a bit. The song is also actually pretty good too, a simple rock song with a melody in chorus that sticks to the head. Not much meaning in the lyrics but I think it's good as a contrast to some more deeper lyrics.
> 
> THE LONGEST NIGHT - The second ballad and the only song where you can actually hear Ken on lead vocals, on a few tracks he sings the second vocals together with Tiranti but this is a duet where they share the vocals. This is better than the other ballad but either this is as good as some of the ballads Ken has written before.
> 
> So, there was it song by song. Overall I would say this sound really good, it's heavy and there's a lot of Hammond Organ and the playing is excellent. The songs also seem to more in the same style with each other when on previous records in the last fifteen years that Ken has pursued his new solo career I have felt that the albums have been put together of songs written over a long period in time and that are different in style. I don't know if it's the case but it could be that he?s used most of the "old supply" and these are newer songs written especially for Live Fire, at least so it seems to me. Musically this is his strongest album so far. There is actually no weak songs included here although a few of them I'm not that excited after a few listens but perhaps these will grow when given time. Ken's song writing and the sense of melody is still there. The CD has "only" 10 songs but the total playing time is still over 50 minutes so the songs are quite long. I like that the songs are given more space to build with this as there are long intros and long instrumental parts.
> 
> There's the good stuff, then the negative: The only thing I have to complain so far is the vocals. The previous lead vocalist Eirikur Hauksson and the bass player Sid Ringsby left earlier this year and they were replaced by Italian Roberto Tiranti who both sings and plays bass. Ken sings lead vocals only on one song and the rest is left to Tiranti. I had doubts beforehand on how he would do as I wasn't that convinced of his vocal abilities based on what I had heard him sing before.
> 
> After hearing Trouble my opinion hasn't changed. He is an OK singer but nothing more. I was worried about the Italian accent but that was a positive surprise that he actually pronounced the words quite well, either he has practiced well or Ken has done a lot of coaching on the matter. Still that doesn't change the fact that as a singer he is not of the same standard as Ken's songs, these are so good that they would have deserved a better singer. Of several songs he sounds a bit like Glenn Hughes and even like John Sloman at times but that's just the problem: He sounds like someone else and he doesn't have his own sound that could be recognized. If this was an album by a new upcoming band or artist he would do just fine but as interpreter of Ken Hensley's song he is just not good enouh.
> 
> Several times when listening to the album I find myself thinking: "How good would this sound with Eirikur or Ken singing". One of the best things on previous album Faster was that Ken's and Eirikur's voices fit in really well together and they divived the lead vocals part pretty equally. This solution would have been better also on this album or Ken could in my opinion sing himself most of the songs even if Tiranti sang them live, anyway only a couple of these will probably ever be played live. But apparently Ken and the band are happy with him and it seems Ken is not interesting in singing on Live Fire albums. I hope the next record he released will be a real solo album so we can enjoy his singing more.
> 
> 
> -- 
> TapioM.
> tapio at uriah-heep.fi
> www.uriah-heep.fi
> 
> 
> 
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