Sebastian Bach | Kicking & Screaming
by Mark Allen
Staff Writer
Bach is back and he’s still got it, that elusive, spine-chilling “it” that so many singers would sell their spleen and possibly left testicle to possess. A ballsy rock ‘n’ roll bastard, Bach is capable of kicking in your teeth with a raging metal track, punching you in the guts with an in-your-face hard rock anthem, or soothing your troubled soul with a brooding, melancholy ballad. On Kicking & Screaming, his latest concoction, he does all three.
When Bach’s previous album, Angel Down, hit the streets in ’07, fans hoping for something on par with Skid Row were instead subjected to a full-fledged heavy metal album that saw Bach screaming as much as singing. It divided fans like a heavy metal Moses parting a Red Sea of rockers, with some bemoaning the sparse commercial hooks and lack of catchy choruses while others were perfectly happy to hear Bach scream his lungs raw and slam out some serious hammer-down intensity. Kicking & Screaming continues in a similar vein, once again making the lines between hard rock and metal blurrier than an alcoholic’s vision after a three-day bender. On this outing, Bach sings far more than he screams (though he definitely cuts loose with his patented wail from time to time) and the hooks are significantly improved, though nobody should expect to hear anything as anthemic as “Youth Gone Wild.” That said, whether by chance or by design, this album could have easily served as the bridge between Slave to the Grind and Subhuman Race, which means it’s pretty damn good.
What are also good are the skills of new guitar hero Nick Sterling. Barely old enough to (legally) drink, Sterling is a young gun on the scene, but he smokes an axe like nobody’s business. His playing is redolent with the hot-blooded energy of youth, the reckless abandon that is too often tamed the older we get. Whether pumping out power-riffs, laying down licks more wicked than a tongue-job from the devil’s daughter, or scorching the strings with some sizzling solos (that, unfortunately, are generally a bit too brief), Sterling proves he has what it takes to become a household name in the guitar-slinging business.
So you’ve got a legendary vocalist, you’ve got a ripping guitarist, you’ve got a heavy rhythm section—seriously, no pussy percussion on this album—and you’ve got a top-notch production job courtesy of Bob Marlette. So the logical next question is, what about the songs? Well, some of them will kick your ass seven ways from Sunday, some of them are good without being great, and a few will leave you thinking that Bach can do better. But for the most part the quality remains upper echelon, if not quite hyper-stratospheric. You get the tough, nasty, throbbing groove of “TunnelVision,” you get the catchy mid-tempo rock of “As Long as I Got the Music,” and you get the standout track “Dirty Power,” which is loaded with heaping gobs of heaviness as well as the kind of power-hook chorus many folks will wish appeared on every track. And this being Bach, you also get a trio of ballads, and while all are serviceable, they don’t come close to the level of mastery that Bach achieved with “Quicksand Jesus,” “I Remember You,” and “In a Darkened Room” back in the day.
To summarize, Sebastian Bach enthusiasts hoping for a Skid Row clone will probably be a smidge disappointed, though there are certainly plenty of similarities to Bach’s past sprinkled across this release. Kicking & Screaming does a great job of displaying Bach’s inimitable vocal talents and while it skews toward the heavy end of the musical spectrum, the place where hard rock and metal juxtapose, it does so in fine fashion. Few singers combine attitude, aggression, and melody as well as Bach, and if he skimps a little bit on that third component, he damn near makes up for it with extra helpings of the other two.
Genre: Hard Rock / Metal
Band:
Sebastian Bach (vocals)
Nick Sterling (guitar, bass, backing vocals)
Bobby Jerzombek (drums, percussion, backing vocals)
Additional Musicians:
John 5 (guitars on “TunnelVision”)
Track Listing
1. Kicking & Screaming
2. My Own Worst Enemy
3. TunnelVision
4. Dance on Your Grave
5. Caught in a Dream
6. As Long as I Got the Music
7. I’m Alive
8. Dirty Power
9. Live the Life
10. Dream Forever
11. One Good Reason
12. Lost in the Light
13. Wishin’
Webpage: www.sebastianbach.com
Label: Frontiers Records
Hardrock Haven rating: 8.5/10