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The Road Home
This CD from Dave Rowley harks back to the halcyon days of bands like Dogs D'Amour (when the music was stripped down to the basics and the image was often that of an urban cowboy), and is filled to the brim with laid-back acoustic numbers fleshed out with the odd electric, mandolin and gob iron. The best facet, though, is Dave's voice - a cross between The Dogs' Tyla, Spike from The Quireboys and early Rod, with a healthy dollop of originality to boot. It's similar throughout, but still cool nonetheless.
Sink or swim?
The production and packaging is top class and, if Dave spreads his wings a little further, things could go well.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Guitarist Magazine
The Road Home
Dave Rowley is a British singer/songwriter, who is so 'well known' that he has decided, for some reason, to face away from the camera for his album artwork. Rowley is, in fact, the lead singer with Crucifer, a heavy metal band that, unusually for that type of act, performs music with a Christian message. He is in his early thirties and has recorded before, but this is his first solo CD, which, I hasten to add, is not heavy metal.
Dave has a gentle, throaty, almost hoarse style of singing, and once you get used to the unexpectedness of this, it's quite pleasant. He has solo written all ten tracks and is also co-producer of what is a very good first foray into the realms of country music. Some of his songs can be regarded from two standpoints: they can be listened to as straight forward love songs or, knowing Rowley's Christian leanings, the tracks could equally be about the love of God. This is never more evident than in the title track The Road Home, which is about looking at time and the journey of life. Dave plays harmonica and caresses it through the introduction of Soul Full Of Blues, a soft lilting piece of insight. One of this most thought provoking cuts is Schizophrenic Blues which, though it doesn't actually say so, is about Elvis Presley. (It's actually about what it says in the title SCHIZOPHRENIA!) There are plenty of good songs and this is a real listeners album with lyrics that are both interesting and in some cases quite meaningful.
Rating: 3 and a half out of 5
Country Music International
Hellbound Angel - Crucifer
The Cold wind of change which blew through nineties rock turned words like 'heavy' and 'metal' into five letter words, and buried many bands beneath the shifting sands of fashion. Thankfully, unreconstructed rock dinosaurs Crucifer have no truck with fashion. The uncoolest album of the year has emerged with a roar, Rodney Matthews cover art and all. 'Hellbound Angel is laden with molten metal which avoids parody, yet embraces cliche, and everything else that was 'ard 'n' eavy from the era when real men wore tights, on stage at least.
A bit like The X-Files (except for the tights of course, although if anyone's got a photo of Sculley in black stockings, let me know. But I digress). We all know it's tosh, but because Mulder, Sculley, Skinner et al perform with a straight face, we can suspend belief for 45 minutes.
Blessed with riffs that never end, cracking melodies and Dave Rowley's throaty growl, the album backtracks through the garage metal of Diamond Head and early Metallica, and delivers ten glorious slabs of the heavy stuff, with all the wild-eyed enthusiasm of NWOBHM.(That's New Wave of British Heavy Metal in case you were unsure!)
The title cut itself 'Hellbound Angel' apart from sounding wonderfully anachronistic, is a chainmail clad anthem, in the HM tradition.
By the time we reach 'Sweet Miss Fortune' and 'Power of the Flame' Crucifer's musical menu is clearly laid out, with no hidden agendas and no indulgent experimentation. 'Hellbound Angel' is as safe and as solid as a postwar brick shithouse (pardon my French, Vicar). Chris Barker doesn't so much play drums, but hits things hard and often, in sympathy with the Reverend (yes he is) Darren Stott's coruscating bass lines, underpinning the primal riffs and orgiastic axework.
The message is clearly Christian, and given the band's uncompromsing music, the expectancy is Elmer Gantry style fire and brimstone sermonising. Far from it - the lyrics are frequently reflective, and if there's a common theme it's simply and starkly the emptiness of life without something to put your faith and belief in.
Amen to that.
Rating: 8 out of 10
Hard Roxx Magazine
Hellbound Angel - Crucifer
Okay, here's your starter for ten: what style of music does this Bolton quartet peddle? Correct; it's Ambient Tantric Hardstep!
Oh, alright, it's good old metal, and this band's demo CD features 10 slabs of guitar-driven rawk.
Crucifer are guitarist Brandon Pilling (who has no problem admitting to using a Jackson Randy Rhoads; well done that man!), vocalist Dave Rowley, real-life Methodist minister Reverend Darren Scott on bass, drummer Christopher James Barker and honorary fifth member Karl Spencer, who twiddles the band's knobs in a front-of-house stylie.
The most interesting aural facet of the band is the Rowley gob, which goes from Bruce Dickenson via Paul Di'Anno to, of all luminaries, Sir Rodney of Stewart! There's no HM version of Maggie May, but the 40-fags a day croak certainly adds a smack of personality to what is no-frills (and no surprises) metal.
Highlights include the epic Def Leppard-style multi-vocal intro to Hellbound Angel, a Saxon influence to Wild And Free and a suitably metalriffic twin-guitar break at the outset of The Power Of The Flame (dig those titles, chaps!)
The Pillster's excellent rhythm work and sound are let down somewhat by his 'pentatonic box' approach to solos and general licks (Just The Way is the biggest culprit), while Barker's tubs seem to waver between firmly nailing the beat and tickling; those out-of time stabs during Midnight are inexcusable.
Verdict
Yes, I realise metal is about as popular as a ferret in your swimming trunks at the moment but, for those of you that have strayed from the True Path, there's an increasing amount of heavy stuff arriving at the gates of Soundcheck Towers.
Crucifer's got their act together as far as presenting themselves is concerned, with a cool cover, a deliberately amusing biog and an interesting history.
The volume of the production tends to go up and down, but is otherwise there or there abouts. Musically, influences in HM are the easiest to spot of all genres, but a little more original thought definitely wouldn't go amiss.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Guitarist Magazine.