{"id":40512,"date":"2014-05-15T18:27:25","date_gmt":"2014-05-15T23:27:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/?p=40512"},"modified":"2014-05-15T18:27:25","modified_gmt":"2014-05-15T23:27:25","slug":"lillian-axe-one-night-at-the-temple-cd-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/2014\/lillian-axe-one-night-at-the-temple-cd-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Lillian Axe | One Night at the Temple<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Derric Miller<\/span>
\n– Managing Editor —<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"lillianaxe-onenightinthetemple800\"There are entirely too many bands whom writers and critics call underrated. The only time all of them are right is when they use \u201cunderrated\u201d and \u201cLillian Axe\u201d in the same sentence. The album Love and War<\/em> should be on everyone\u2019s \u201cif stranded alone on a desert island what three albums would you want\u201d list. In part unheralded, unrecognized and unrewarded, Lillian Axe is one of those rare bands who continued to make the same quality music when changing singers. Sure, original recording vocalist Ron Taylor was a man among boys back in the \u201880s, but he was up against shriekers like Mark Slaughter, multi-octave legends like Tony Harnell, talented singing screamers like Sebastian Bach and harsh high-pitched bullhorns like David Wayne. Taylor sounded like a man, even when hitting the high notes, and maybe that\u2019s why their music didn\u2019t resonate as well as it should have at that time. But he was as good as them all.<\/p>\n

In other words, Lillian Axe is one of the best bands ever to come out of the \u201880s. Period. <\/p>\n

As they changed vocalists with Taylor exiting the band, they went on to record Waters Rising<\/em>, Sad Day on Planet Earth<\/em> and Deep Red Shadows<\/em> with singer Derrick LeFevre and XI: The Days Before Tomorrow<\/em> with vocalist Brian Jones. While none of those albums quite matched Love and War<\/em>, they certainly hold their own against Poetic Justice<\/em> and Fields of Yesterday<\/em>. (Probably not Psychoschizophrenia<\/em>, though; that one nearly caught up to Love and War.)<\/p>\n

The theme holding all of these components together is founding guitarist and Louisiana Music Hall of Fame inductee Steve Blaze, who has consistently written some of the best songs in the genre for decades. And THAT\u2019S why they could change singers and still be so damn good \u2026 Blaze writes songs like no one else. He\u2019s unique, thought-provoking and so creative if others aren\u2019t jealous, they aren\u2019t paying attention. <\/p>\n

Those songs he wrote \u2026 are eternal. <\/p>\n

And now you get to hear them live and acoustic on One Night at the Temple<\/em>. <\/p>\n

The most unique part of the album is hearing Blaze tell the stories behind the songs. On \u201cSee You Someday\u201d Blaze talks about how this song helped people overcome tragedies in their lives, breakups and deaths; \u201cBow Your Head\u201d he explains the song is about a boy who passed away before he was three years old, and it\u2019s a celebration of his life; \u201cThe Day I Met You\u201d is what he calls a standard wedding song inspired by Beatles; and \u201cPromised Land\u201d helped a man who lost his fianc\u00e9e in a car accident stop from taking his own life. It\u2019s pretty heavy stuff, but really, there is something positive in every song\u2019s message. <\/p>\n

For fans of their early work who didn\u2019t pay attention to them after Fields of Yesterday<\/em>, it\u2019s different hearing someone other than Taylor sing on the earlier Lillian Axe tracks. But Brian Jones kills on songs like \u201cGhost of Winter,\u201d is haunting and emotional when he needs to be, and rages at the end in true homage to what your ears remember. It might be even a bit weirder when songs like \u201cMisery Loves Company\u201d and \u201cNobody Knows\u201d start, because their original singer Johnny Vines takes the mic. It\u2019s cool knowing that they went from someone with a clean and throaty delivery to Taylor, who in many ways is Vines\u2019 opposite, stylistically. But he\u2019s a damn good singer too. Blaze has worked with four different singers, and he obviously has a talent for picking vocal talent. (Won\u2019t mention the short multi-day period when Ronnie Munroe was\/wasn\u2019t their singer, who is awesome too and would have made it a fifth singer Blaze worked with.) <\/p>\n

Jones shines brightest when singing the songs he recorded, like \u201cDeath Comes Tomorrow\u201d and \u201cThe Great Divide,\u201d but he still nails everything else. <\/p>\n

The atmosphere is so intimate, the recording is impeccable, and as far as albums go in the pantheon of live acoustic recordings, this is at least as good as Tesla\u2019s Five Man Acoustical Jam<\/em>. It may even be better \u2026 <\/p>\n

This many songs, celebrating their past and present, in this environment, should be both inspiring and intimidating if you are a recording artist. This is how a real band sounds, from a songwriting and live performance perspective. Exactly how in the hell and who in the hell is ever going to top this one? The gauntlet has been cast down. <\/p>\n

In a year that thus far has been somewhat musically devoid of a \u201cwow factor,\u201d Lillian Axe just wrote the blueprint as how to write, record, play and be the best. If the rest of the world would just pick up on that, there\u2019d be a lot more credible music fans and critics around. <\/p>\n

Genre: Hard Rock<\/p>\n

Lineup:
\nBrian Jones (lead vocals)
\nSteve Blaze (guitar and vocals)
\nSam Poitevent (guitar and vocals)
\nEric Morris (bass guitar)
\nKen Koudelka (drums)<\/p>\n

Tracklisting:
\nDISC 1:
\n\u2022 Waters Rising
\n\u2022 Death Comes Tomorrow
\n\u2022 Ghost Of Winter
\n\u2022 See You Someday
\n\u2022 The Great Divide
\n\u2022 Nocturnal Symphony
\n\u2022 Sad Day On Planet Earth
\n\u2022 Bow Your Head
\n\u2022 Show A Little Love
\n\u2022 Misery Loves Company<\/p>\n

DISC2:
\n\u2022 Crucified
\n\u2022 The World Stop Turning
\n\u2022 Dyin’ To Live (Shades Of Blue)
\n\u2022 Until The End Of The World
\n\u2022 The Day I Met You
\n\u2022 The Promised Land
\n\u2022 Nobody Knows
\n\u2022 My Apologies
\n\u2022 True Believer
\n\u2022 Nobody Knows (Crowd Version)<\/p>\n

Label: MelodicRock Records<\/p>\n

Online: www.lillianxe.com<\/a> <\/p>\n

Hardrock Haven rating: 9.5\/10<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Derric Miller – Managing Editor — There are entirely too many bands whom writers and critics call underrated. The only time all of them are right is when they use \u201cunderrated\u201d and \u201cLillian Axe\u201d […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":40514,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10848],"tags":[2317,1103,304,1643,9318,9319],"class_list":{"0":"post-40512","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arcrvws2014","8":"tag-cd-review","9":"tag-hard-rock","10":"tag-lillian-axe","11":"tag-melodicrock-records","12":"tag-one-night-at-the-temple","13":"tag-steve-blaze"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}