Lillian Axe is one of those 80's era bands that slipped under my radar as I was making my first in roads in to music. At the time, I was getting into the more popular acts at the time, so while I remember the name kicking around, but they never made it to my player. Now, fourteen years removed from their last studio album, Lillian Axe is back with their 6th full length, and it sounds good. Very good in fact. It is a strong album with focus on the song writing, finely crafted rock songs without any excessive frills.Waters Rising marks the return of the band with a new singer. Former lead singer, Ron Taylor, resigned from the band in 2004 and was replaced by Derrick Lefevre. Now, without any past experience with them, I have no real grounds for comparing the two singers, but I can say that Lefevre delivers the goods. He doesn't really have a great range, at least by the evidence of this album, but he does fit the band very well, delivering just the right inflection, bringing a lot of weight to the material. His fine vocal performance combines just right with the very melodic riff-centric music and nicely crafted solos from band leader Steve Blaze.
The album starts with the title track, opening with solo guitar strums before kicking into full rock mode. "Waters Rising" gives a good indication of the rest of the album, but it is far from the strongest on the disk. Still, it proved to be a good introduction to the band, with its nicely melodic verses and a more edgy chorus riff. It is followed by the darkly, and melodically atmospheric "Antarctica." It isn't until the third track when everything began to sink in for me.
Track three is "Become a Monster," definitely one of the heavier tracks on the set. There was something about the the heavy riffs, nice drumming, and vocal pattern that really sucked me into the song. The mood keeps it up through the next two songs, although the sound is different. First up is "Quarantine," which slows the pace a bit, has a nice crunchy guitar riff, but is just really nice songwriting, each instrument falling into place. That is followed by one of the finest songs here, "I Have to Die, Goodbye." It is a rather depressing tune that brings in acoustic guitar and bongos to the mix in a song about love, loss, and inability to move on. There is something that I have been unable to put my finger on, Lefevre sound slike someone else at points, but for the life of me I cannot say who.
Standouts from the second half include the ballad "Until the End of the World." It has a nice, gentle flow to its acoustic/electric mix. For as good as that was, the stakes are upped in the very next song, "Fields of Yesterday," which brings in a string section. The song clocks in at over eight minutes, and features some absolutely gorgeous atmosphere. It is simply a beautiful song. The more high powered energy returns in "Thirst," a strong rocking song.
All of this builds to the final two songs. First is the sprawling epic sound of "Deep in the Black," featuring this big, expansive sound that stands out against the rest of the album. The last track is an instrumental called "5" which sounds nothing like the rest of the album. Heavy riffs, driving drums, and blazing (no pun intended) lead work. This is a wild metal instrumental, stepping away from the hard rock sounds of the rest of the album and into a more purely metal world. This song is impressive, and I have to wonder what this might have sounded like if they had employed a similar style on the rest of the album.
Bottomline. Very nice album. Some good rock tunes, some impressive atmosphere related songs, and just some great songwriting. This turned out to be considerably better than what I had imagined when it arrived on my doorstep. Sure, it is not breaking any new ground, but it is definitely solid. The worst thing I can say about it is that the album cover art is rather lame.
Recommended.
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