Edguy

Rocket Ride (Nuclear Blast)
by Martin Popoff

If you don’t mind Stratovarius getting rock ‘n’ rollsy, or Alexi’s hair metal covers, then Edguy‘s continued provocation toward various mainstream metal moves might come off as fresh, unselfconscious fun (cos listening to music is supposed to be fun, not torture, right?). But if you want your heroes to keep their eye on the balls-out ball when it comes to their records, then Tobias might be a bit too irreverent for you. Popping synths, acoustic guitars, shameless balladeering, hair metal choruses, and tossed off lyrics (the album closes with a full-on parody of L.A. glam) are all over this record. There’s also a grandness of production and dynamic which didn’t work for Scorpions after Blackout, and might not be welcome back a mere two decades later. To my mind, though, there’s enough going on here, as well as a joie de vivre, and a sharpness and punch, to convert me to nodding a tentative yes to what’s going to be a controversial, debated album. But in comparison, I’m still in awe at that last Falconer album, those guys finding a way to wink at metal conventions and clichés while still friggin’ blazing a strip off the strip club. But yes, on the other hand, I’m hugely amused how this record, dropped into 1991, might have been seen as a heavy hair band album, its weird European twist wrinkling the nose of listeners in white cowboy boots, as they wrestle with a contextual vibe they couldn’t have known came from an additional 15 years of metal evolution.
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