Hot on the heels of the excellent ‘live in Cologne’ CD/DVD set, Jaded Heart are back with a new album and a new line-up, co-founder and drummer Axel Kruse having departed and been replaced by Bodo Stricker (Callejon) whilst live guitarist Masa Eto has also been bought into the fold to thicken up the band’s sound. The result is a full-on blast of melodic and heavy hitting metal with hints of Tank, Queensryche and Europe working their way through the album’s eleven songs. For classic metal fans, there is no doubt that ‘fight the system’ should be high on your list of albums to check out.
Opening song ‘schizophrenic’ sweeps into view with a synth hook, an unconventional move which bodes ill until a monstrous riff comes scything in and you realise we’re in Queensryche (‘empire’) territory, the band indulging in epic riffs, soaring melodies and huge choruses that work their way deep into the consciousness. ‘Control’ is liable to be of great interest to the unconvinced as it features Masterplan vocalist Rick Altzi who does a grand job of unleashing his metallic roar over the harmonised guitar lines and full-tilt percussion. It’s grand, melodramatic stuff and it’s quite impossible not to be drawn into its wonderful ludicrousness, as massed harmonies, wild solos and metal clichés all pile up to create a gloriously over-the-top blast that is endlessly entertaining. With a rippling, synth-led intro, ‘not in a million years’ indulges in staccato riffs, incongruously baroque synth lines and grinding riffs highlighting just how little Jaded Heart care about convention. Long may they remain so incongruous, because the truth is you’ll hear few songs in this genre that manage to combine such familiar choruses with such outré sonic manoeuvres on the verse! ‘I lost my faith’, as you might imagine, is a crunchy, heavy number that delights in heavily muted riffs and glorious solos. Even stripped back, as it is on the verse, the synths keep the pace taut whilst Johan’s vocal performance is top notch, as it remains throughout. ‘Nightmare’s over’ is a throwback to the heyday of metal in the eighties when such songs would regularly make the charts around the world – a huge chorus, a melody that seems custom built to close the latest entry in some ridiculous slasher movie (Friday 13th Xiii!!!) and lyrics that vaguely reference nightmares, angels and anything else destined to appeal to the gloriously naïve imagination of a rampant teen audience. Sure it’s clichéd, but it’s also a barrel load of fun and it makes you hanker for a time when hard rock was a brightly coloured explosion of impossible haircuts, leather jackets and studs rather than today’s rather more dour creatures.
What appears to be obligatory ballad sits happily in the middle of the album, awash in synth strings and the sort of clean guitar sound that bands have been too afraid to use since ‘nothing else matters’ became the anthem of choice for pretty much every metal fan ever, only for the band to turn the tables and unleash an epic metal anthem when you least expect it. Agai recalling Queensryche, ‘never free’ deftly defeats expectations and the song’s central riff is a chrome-plated beast best suited to those keen on motorcycling around Europe to the sound of metal. Another riff-tastic beast, ‘till death do us part’ kicks off in style, with a bass guitar that does its best to approximate a revving engine and the band play it fast and loose, bringing to mind Motly Crue at their down ‘n’ dirtiest. Maintaining the pace, against all the odds, ‘terror in me’ is a chugging beast riven through with stuttering synth lines and a vocal performance that is surely the best on the album. Proving they can pack a mighty punch, ‘haunted’ has a kick ass riff and a potent attitude whilst the weakly titled ‘crying’ is anything but, the band clearly delighting in flattening the listener with the sort of flame-powered riffs that make you want to leap to your feet in ecstasy. The album draws to its close with ‘in the shadows’, the sort of stadium-levelling anthem that you can imagine being sung with gusto by a legion of fans.
Jaded Heart have no intention of reinventing the wheel. They offer little that is new (although they frequently amuse themselves by playing with convention and form), but then that is not the point of the band. Jaded Heart are here to turn up the volume and bang some heads and in that they are ludicrously successful. There is not a cliché they’re unafraid to use, not a moment that they consider too over-the-top and that is the joy of the band. In a time where everyone is pilloried for everything online and in print, bands have become too damned shy to try anything new. Not for the 00s are the shocking fashion choices of glam, the brightly coloured new romantics or the flamboyantly-clad punks – here risk and change are considered taboo and music that fails to conform to what the self-appointed taste-makers consider acceptable is banished. Jaded Heart don’t care about any of that. They exist in a world where heavy metal is king; where you can ride a motorcycle on stage and be cheered for it and where you can blow dry, poodle perm or colour your hair to within an inch of its life and inspire nothing more than a few thousand more teenagers to put your poster on their wall! In short, jaded Heart exist out of time and fashion and they sound all the better for it. If you love real, unapologetic, unrestrained heavy metal, then ‘fight the system’ will prove to be the album for you.
