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Read the Scott Rockenfield interview
What’s the 4-1-1?
The quartet featuring current and former members of Queensryche and
Brother Cane mix things up to find a just about near perfect recipe
of debut ripping hard rock.
Genre
Hard rock / rock / power rock
The Good
Where do I begin? This album is excellent throughout all 12 tracks. I’m
not kidding. The album features the heavy hard rock songs, deft mid-tempo tracks
and a sweet little power ballad called “Abyss.”The title track is a searing example of how to construct a hard rocking track.
The vocals and all the instrumentation combine to simply beat the listener into
musical submission.
While it’s great to have such a great hard rock album with little to no
compromises, I did like the song “Will You Be There” which has a
nice infusion of blues rock.
I speak as someone who places almost the entirety of the blame for the horrifyingly
awful Queensryche album Q2K at the feet of guitarist/producer Kelly Gray. I’m
not sure exactly how much and where on the album his contributions land, but
considering that this is a great guitar rock CD, he may just be getting a bit
of respect out of me after this.
While all members of the band acquit themselves quite well, I found the standout
performance belongs to drummer Scott Rockenfield. He hasn’t sounded so
sublimely powerful to my ears in many an album. The drums must’ve been
screaming in agony after he finished recording his parts.
The Bad
There’s nothing to say here.
The Verdict
When I review an album, I generally need to listen to it twice. I’ve
had this album banging around in my head four times already and it’s
going to get a lot more time in the CD player.
This is what a heavy rock album that crosses into heavy metal land at times should
be. A collection of pounding tracks that shake any cobwebs from your brain. This
is an album that you NEED to have.
It doesn’t sound like anyone else, despite the group’s musical pedigree.
Slave To The System is it’s own musical entity and even despite the upcoming
new Queensryche album, I hope that STTS continues to produce more material like
this and eventually mounts a concert tour.
Did You Know?
Guitarist Scott Heard contributed to this CD, but is not listed as a member
of the band.
Scott Rockenfield runs his own production company called Rockenfield Music Productions.
You can check it out at HERE
Rating:  out
of 5
-- Jay Roberts
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SLAVE
TO THE SYSTEM
