Icarus Witch – “Rise”

I’m gonna start this off by saying that damn it if Cleopatra Records ain’t got a knack for signing killer bands!! And I ain’t just saying that ’cause they signed my band back in the day, either!!!

I originally heard Icarus Witch when they did a tour with Paul Di’Anno and were the opener as well as backing band for Paul. They announced they had a new vocalist, Christopher Shaner. Well, lemme tell ya: this new vocalist was one of the best kept Metal secrets in the U.S.A.!!! He freaking dominates!!! How this dude wasn’t know outside of PA was beyond me…well, that’ll change soon.

Christopher Shaner – vocalist extraordinaire!!!!

This album squeezes a lot of cool stuff into a diverse package. First thing that grabs you is the album artwork. Pretty killer photo, and I’m kinda hoping that I can find some photos of the model sans silken sheet-like coverings…but alas, no…

The highlight here is Shaner, make no doubt about it. He is a singular talent. If I had to hazard a guess, I would put Steve Perry somewhere in his favorites growing up. He has a certain majestic power to his vocals that are best experienced live, where he really shines. Here, with a slightly more compressed production, he isn’t as commanding as I have heard him live. I would have liked a more open production, something a little more raw. As it is, it’s slick and radio-ready (if there is such a thing anymore); It’s sure to please legions of AOR fans and has enough edge to grab some of the older, more ’80s Metal fans (like myself).


copyright Cleopatra Records 2012

Light and breezy

The music runs through some faster, more Metal-ish stuff and settles happily into midpaced Heavy Rock/Metal. They have a couple ballads, of which “Tragedy” is particularly grandiose and excellent. Guitarists Quinn Lukas and Dave Watson paint some wonderful canvases throughout, and Lukas in particular has some killer brush strokes in his repertoire. All-in-all a great collection of trad Metal that I think fans of everything ’80s will eat up like Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food ice cream (which is to say fast and with gusto)…
This album will find its way into a lot of Top 20 lists this year, and it will be well deserved as it really crosses over well between Hard Rock and Metal. Seriously, though, you have to catch them live if they are playing anywhere near you and you are anyway a fan of more traditional Metal.

For beer tonight we have Pretty Things Beer and Ale Project‘s Field Mouse’s Farewell. Like a lot of smaller brewers popping up around the World, these guys are semi-nomadic. That means they rent facilities to do their brewing. Mikkeller and Stillwater Artisanal being two of the better-known nomad brewers out there. This beer falls into a somewhat-Farmhouse somewhat-Golden Ale category. It’s tasty and refreshing and light, but not overly robust. The grain is really at the front, middle and back end of this beer, and doesn’t leave a lot of space for much else. You’ve had this before, and it won’t wow you, but during a hot Summer twilight, it’s rockin’ like Dokken…

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