Jordan Red: Beautiful Monsters
Single review by; Michael Blackhart
The great and the good of the London Rock scene have a couple of venues to descend upon... Decadence, Sin City, Voodoo Rocks, to name but a few... Its a heady mix of denim and leather...
But the shining light... in this pantheon of 'might' is the Ben Christo (Sisters Of Mercy Guitarist) fronted, 'Shot through the Heart'... Black T shirts bearing the logo are available for purchase ...
Its a monthly night of live 80's hard rock, AOR and hair metal covers... with raucous riffs, heavenly harmonies, searing solos and ballistic beats... and if you're a rock person looking for other rock people to hang out with its a good place to start...
The atmosphere is congenial and Mr Christo has surrounded himself with some fantastic players to aid and assist him in the delivery of the 'live' portion of the evenings entertainment... One key figure in the ensemble, is the mighty vocal talents of Daniel 'Dan' Leigh...
First time I saw him on stage his look reminded me of, 'The Sax man Tim Cappello' from The Lost Boys (1987) movie... and when he started wailing on his mic... Crikey! That's quite a set of pipes he's got on him!
Known for his work with 'New Device' and 'The Smokin' Aces' he has now embarked upon his latest project 'Jordan Red'... Once you scroll down from all the Nike Jordan related sneakarage on a google search, you will find them, I promise...
According to the bio... "Jordan Red fuse the melodic elements of 21st-Century rock and alternative metal with the aggressive high energy pulse of modern punk"....
They've got an album on the way too... 'Hands That Built The World'... As of this articles publication no release date has been set, but it will be available at some point this year (2020), and apparently... ' Jordan Red will raise their voice where others fall silent..." Something to look forward to? Hopefully....
In preparation for this coming opus, we have their debut single and video.... 'Beautiful Monsters'...
What have we got?
As I look at the current stats... its got 77 thumbs up, zero thumps down, 87 subscribers and a whopping 6.2k views... good times... with all the comments coming in as positive... to be fair there are only 12 of them at the moment, but its a good trajectory!
What does it sound like? ... Well... It sounds great... I'm sure it'll be making the rounds on all the rock shows. Planet Rock will have it on their playlist and Classic Rock will probably have it as a track of the week... 'Beautiful Monsters', does all that you need it to do with a 3 minute and 13 second run-time...
The production is spot on, helmed by the 'go to guy'... Romesh Dodangoda... he's a modern day Andy Wallace and definitely has his very own USP... So if you liked his work with BMTH AND BFMV, this will be right up your street... as the drums(Dave Fee), bass (Conor o'Keefe) and guitar (Dan Baker) have got that vibe and tone dialed in all the way, while Dan's vocals are reminiscent of Myles Kennedy...
But does it feed into the mission statement from the bio on their website?
To a degree... but its definitely cooking on something and it does avoid being too generic and too formulaic...
But... I think they might of missed a trick with the tracks title... as one of the lyrics reads...
'This Dark will multiply the light of 10,000 fireflies'...
Its a fantastic lyric and its sung with passion and conviction, so much so that for my money it would of made for a better title...
The video directed and produced by 'Sitcom Soldiers'... is a minimalist performance piece. Everyone's dressed in black and the band is bathed in shadows and red light. Video effects come in the form of ghoulish CGI masks, layered over the band members faces...guess it ties into their lyric whereby they are literally... "Bring(ing) out the demon(s) that are taking us over"... Its all very Japanese horror movie inspired... Scary stuff...
As debut's go, its a solid start... lets look forward to whats next, roll on the live dates!
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Official website: http://www.jordan-red.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/jordanredband
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/jordanredband
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jordanredband