Here, for your consideration is the new CD, World Gone Mad by The Kris Heaton Band. This record follows Kris's six previous releases and he has also been the winner of the Miller High Life Rock To Riches Award and Akademia Music Awards including Best Rock Song for 2017 for the opening tune of World Gone Mad, Who Let The Bullets Fly.
The Kris Heaton Band's music is pretty much standard 1980's straight ahead rock along the lines of Bryan Adams or a thousand other radio ready AOR rockers. Heavy guitars, big drum sounds and with some synth touches tunes like Who Let The Bullets Fly sounds like it's coming through your radio speakers in between commercials for the upcoming NASCR race and Coors Light. This sort of music, such as another song, When We Danced, brings to mind the kind of vibe once brought forth by song's like Bruce Springsteen's Dancing In The Dark.
Band's leader and namesake, Kris Heaton, is from Connecticut which is maybe why his music conjures up so many other rock stars of the past rather than suggests a NEXT BIG SOUND as Connecticut has yet to develop its own original music scene and sound. At least none that has become known nationally, yet. He is a seasoned road dog with eight years on the road with the band Control Group but finally settled down long enough to raise some kids. Now he is involved in the local music scene in Connecticut where he does live shows.
His time on the road was well spent as he has opened shows for artists such as Stevie Ray Vaughan, Greg Allman, Molly Hatchet, The Romantics and Leon Russel. Since all of the solo artists just named are now dead, it seems it's been a while since he's been rockin'. Pulling a John Lennon, staying home baking bread, is great but now it's apparently time to dust off the old duster and hit the boards again and with this new CD he's back strong with a vengeance.
The Kris Heaton Band has recorded three CDs and has worked with Pat DiNizio of the Smithereens, a personal favorite of mine, and Kris has worked with the Brandenburg Germany State Symphony Orchestra on a variety of non-rock projects most notably covering shortened versions of his songs. Yeah, I don't really understand what that's about. This guy has recorded symphonic versions of his rock band's songs? Why shortened versions? I'm curious about what's going on there.
In his press kit The Kris Heaton Band personnel are listed as: Kris Heaton and Ace Foster. World Gone Mad is a pretty full sounding CD for just two guys but that seems to be what's happening these days. How does a duo replicate the sound of this record live? By the way, don't let the video throw you. The album is actually pretty good, Good performances, songs that aren't anything new but the kind of stuff we usually like, and top production quality but the video is an example of sometimes it's better to be heard and not seen.
No comments:
Post a Comment