Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Recording an album is only really as hard or as difficult as the artist wants it to be. There is of course the pain of opening the soul up so far that it allows others who have no connection to the musician, in the act of revealing one’s life, no matter how sincere the writing or score is, what is demanding and tiring. It can also be a blessing, a cathartic episode in which the musician just shows to the awaiting audience that what they know is at the end of the day, not all they know. Some will struggle to keep the fine line of privacy and public awareness separate, others embrace it. Michael Monroe, the man who certainly made Hanoi Rocks is one such individual who opens his heart and his latest album, Horns and Halos, is an absolute belter.
Horns and Halos takes life truly by the horns and delivers a piece of rock music that is full on with intensity, charisma and drive. It also does exceptionally well at loosening the foundations of your house and letting the metaphorical slates slide down a few inches before adding to the sound that is emanating through the speakers.
Horns and Halos is not just the product of a life that has been lived or the fevered imagination of someone with great lyrical writing skills, it is has the hallmarks of a place, the one special location in which as music lovers we all dwell and take refuge in, be it a city or a venue. Horns and Halos draws on that and gives Michael Monroe’s fans a pretty rocking sanctuary in which to share his music again.
From the opening explosion of sound in TNT Diet and the storming Ballad of The East Side, Michael shows that despite playing to and thrilling audiences across four different decades, there is more than enough left in the rock tank to produce an album of genuine worth. With tracks such as Eighteen Angels, the exceptional Stained Glass Heart, the outrageously good album title track and the thunderous Child of the Revolution, the album never once lets go and loses sight of its mission to entertain, to thrill, to give the fans yet another reason in which to take the wild excess to heart.
Horns and Halos is released via Spinefarm Records on August 23rd.
Ian D. Hall