As I have mentioned on previous occasions, following the release of Eclipse I had given up on Yngwie ever doing anything great again, and stopped buying his albums. It wasn’t until more than a decade later that I drifted back, to see what had actually occurred during those dark days of the 1990’s. Some of it had been quite good, and I found myself regretting my absence.
One listen to Fire & Ice, the album that directly followed Eclipse is enough to somewhat thank my lucky star that I stopped when I did, or I may never have come back.
This is an obvious continuation of Yngwie’s desire for commercial success. Vocalist Goran Edman is still on board (the man who had so repulsed me when I saw him live in 1990) and still spinning the lyrics that he and Yngwie have come up with to promote their commercial advances. It is quite disappointing to see the songs of this band degenerate into this kind of formulaic hair-metal “I-want-you-girl” stuff. “Teaser” is the perfect example, an attempt to write a commercial hit which backfires terribly by being awful (apart from Yngwie’s solo, which people whom the song is aimed at wouldn’t like anyway!).
OK, it’s not all bad. The opening instrumental “Perpetual” is great, and there are another two or three songs along the way that make you smile and remember the REAL Rising Force when that’s what they were doing. But overall, you just can’t enjoy the album. Yngwie’s guitaring is still fantastic, his breaks and licks bring you out of you slumber whenever they appear. But as a package, this is just terribly lame.
Rating: Closer to ‘Embers and Lukewarm Water’ than Fire & Ice. 2/5.
No comments:
Post a Comment