The Power and the Myth - House of Lords - 2004 (Frontiers)
This was an album I had high hopes for. Don't ask me why: I had never heard of the band before, but something about it just piqued my interest and I decided to give it a try. While not awful by any means, it nevertheless did not exactly send me searching avidly for the rest of their catalogue. It is in fact their fourth of, to date, eight studio albums, but even the appearance of Dream Theater's Derek Shernihan and the lovely Robin Beck could not lift this album above the realm of the ordinary for me.
It opens with “Today”, nice humming synth and lovely little picked classical guitar, the synth getting louder and more insistent until it's joined by electric guitar and drums, and the song gets going. The vocals of James Christian, who also plays lead guitar, swing between a sort of Nickelback growl and a generic AOR style, but effective and also very clear. Nice guitar solo too.
It's an impressive opener, but then “All is Gone” seems to be a fairly generic rock song, nice idea but undeveloped, with an almost Free-like melody, fairly predictable and a bit of a disappointment after the first track. “Am I the Only One” has a nice oriental feel to the keyboard opening, then slips into a sort of semi-ballad style, understated, not bad. It goes along nicely, but then ends very badly, quite unexpectedly. It's followed by a hard rocker, “Living in Silence”, but this goes from prog rock to almost heavy metal: hard to place this band, whom I had taken as being a progressive rock band at heart, but find now to be more straddling AOR and hard rock with, it has to be said, not too much confidence on either side. A balancing act that constantly looks in danger of failing, sending the guys tumbling through the air and down to the ground.
The title track, then, comes over all prog-rock, a powerful instrumental with organs, keyboards, synth and rumbling drums, wailing guitars and warbling keys going at it hammer and tongs. This then runs into the eastern-favoured, Zep-like “The Rapture”, which gives way to the gentle, almost acoustic “The Man Who I Am” (bad grammar too!), probably one of the best tracks on the album with its softly keening synth and its laidback guitar, Christian singing the best I've heard him so far. I believe Shernihan's expertly-crafted keyboards are what makes this song so good. Then we're into “Bitter Sweet Euphoria”, a mid-paced rocker with busy guitars and a nice solo, but then “Mind Trip” falls over into hard rock/almost-punk territory, and it just doesn't work for me. Sounds a little too confused.
Closer “Child of Rage” mimics Guns 'n' Roses' version of Dylan's “Knockin' on Heaven's door” with its opening, but it settles into a nice little ballad with country leanings, great acoustic guitar and organ taking the melody until the electric guitar kicks in as the chorus hits. Very much in the style of Bon Jovi, Poison or indeed the aforementioned G'n'R, a kind of “cowboy ballad”, the sort that tends to be popular with heavy rock bands, and to be fair, they do a good job on it, and it's a very decent closer.
But there are too many low points and nothing special enough about this album to earn it any proper points. Not a bad album by any means, but nothing great either. Never really going to rise above the level of mediocre for me. Hah: not so much the Power and the Myth as the Power and the Meh. Sorry.
TRACK LISTING
1. Today
2. All is Gone
3. Am I the Only One
4. Living in Silence
5. The Power and the Myth
6. The Rapture
7. The Man Who I Am
8. Bitter Sweet Euphoria
9. Mind Trip
10. Child of Rage