by Dan Skiba
— Contributing Writer —
Fans of the Alice Cooper “Hair Metal” era will likely remember when the Hunk-Duo of Kip Winger (bass) and Kane Roberts (guitar) provided eye candy to the never before tapped female sector — a segment of the Metal Community who otherwise had woefully little interest in the King of Shock Rock. Kip went on to form the band Winger, and sadly (for reasons never fully revealed) Kane parted with Cooper as well to pursue a once promising solo career. Roberts’ solo work rode the wave of his Cooper affiliation for a few years, but by and large by 1990 Roberts was deep into the list of “Wonder Where He Is Now”.
In the last handful of years, Roberts has been more active in writing and recording new music, and The New Normal is his latest release via Frontiers Records. The quick of it is this album is Melodic Metal with some tough-guy attitude … and plenty of hurt feelings. But, upon digging in deeper, similar to Shrek’s profound self-assessment when bearing his soul to Donkey, The New Normal is more like an onion … start peeling past the surface, and you’ll be surprised how many unique layers can be found.
Roberts rekindles old friendships and showcases new ones to assist his latest musical creations, including (of course) Alice Cooper who sings on “Beginning Of The End”, the aforementioned Kip Winger, Paul Taylor, Alissa White-Gluz (Arch Enemy), Lzzy Hale (Halestorm), and even Babymetal’s drummer Aoyama Hideki. All contribute to the multiple styles and varied emotions found within The New Normal.
There’s “something for everybody” on this new Kane Roberts release … however, perhaps not enough of any one thing or style to make it highly recommended. The introspective lyrics and open wound heartbreaks are highly personal, and unless you were to know Roberts personally, the messages and themes kind of come across as a big “so what” or “sorry to hear about your bad luck”. When Roberts wants to ROCK, he certainly still can, such as in “King Of The World” and “Wonderful”, and much of that “charm” found in his Alice Cooper days has been recreated in the song “Beginning Of The End”. However, there’s a couple too-many ballads and lyrically dominated tracks to make this an album that you’ll likely come back to time and time again when you need a Metal fix.
Genre: Melodic Metal, Melodic Rock
Band:
Vocals – Kane Roberts, Kane, Alice Cooper, Alissa White-Gluz, Katt Franich
Guitars – Kane Roberts, Evan Magness, Nita Strauss
Bass – Kip Winger, Ed “Special Ed” Modigliani, Johnny 5, Betty Has Eyes
Keyboards – Scot Lang, Paul Taylor, Alex Track
Drums – Ken Mary, Christopher Tisi, Alex Track
Percussion – Alex Track
BG Vocals – David Balfour, Kip Winger, Kane Roberts, Ken Mary
Tracklisting:
Above & Beyond
Beginning Of The End
Who We Are
Wrong
Forever Out Of Place
King Of The World
Leave Me In The Dark
Wonderful
Leave This World Behind
The Lion’s Share
Label: Frontiers Records
Online:
https://www.facebook.com/KaneRobertsFBPage/
Hardrock Haven rating: 
(6.5 / 10)
