House of Lords

Come To My Kingdom (Blistering)
By Martin Popoff

Not sure I’d chalk it up to Greg Giuffria not being part of the mix this time, but James Christian and crew is now caressing the softer, more melodic side of the band, Come To My Kingdom rocking atmospheric and keyboardy with a further emphasis on vocals. Think Lillian Axe or White Lion at their lightest (yet still uptempo), or oddly, Royal Hunt in airy architecture, mebbee a bit of Dokken, although Don could never be this yacht rock (search that in YouTube – something like 11 episodes of brilliance await you). But the songs are strong, the melodies impassioned, and a few percentage points of darkness are in there, or at least a stirring and yearning which strikes at the heart of why I thought Mike Tramp’s Capricorn solo album was such a hard rocking tear-jerker. Still, this is just a little too uniformly sweet and choral – it’s like the polite sister-in-law to World Upside Down‘s uncle spiking the drink with a wink that we’ll all get through the family function with the help of my good friend Jim Beam.
(www.blisteringrecords.se)