This album originally came out in 2002 but this version is the Night Of The Vinyl Dead reissue. For a guy who started out singing pop songs in Australia, Graham Bonnet has sang with some serious hotshot guitar slingers in his career. I don’t think any of this would have happened if Ritchie Blackmore hadn’t taken a sideways step and picked him for the Rainbow gig.
This baby is pounding right from the get go with guitars wailing and shredding in every available space in the music, as you would expect from any Impellitteri record. United We Stand is epic, even by Impellitteri standards, it has killer monster riffage and unreal soloing from Glen Sobel pounding the hell out of the kit, and Graham giving it his all with the vocals. Phew!
Unusually for me, with all this awesome power metal on display it’s a more traditional hard rockin’ tune that is my favourite track on the album, and End Of The World is that song. A nice, dramatic, and eerie intro leads into a killer swing of a groove with a cool chugga riff, and I love the hook and chorus. I like the way Chris Impellitteri combines the neo-classical shredding with huge, heavy, and crunchy riffs and rhythm, it sets him apart from the Yngwie’s of this world as the whole Paganini thing is wearing a bit thin.
If you like your metal with packs of crunch and tons of melody with plenty of groove then you should really be checking out the band’s entire catalog as no one does it better. Cool band and cool record.
9/10 from The Grooveman.
