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JANET GARDNER
Your Place In The Sun
Pavement Music 2019

If you’re a fan of 80s rock, by now you know that singer JANET GARDNER left VIXEN recently to focus on her solo career. Gardner released her self-titled album in 2017 and her partner in the solo project was her husband/lead guitarist JUSTIN JAMES. The album received mainly favorable reviews but the truth is that particular album was digestible by VIXEN’s ‘Foxheads’, and more in the vein of her former band. I suppose that’s to be expected as at that time Gardner was still an active member of VIXEN and she hadn’t yet developed her own identity and sound.

KNAC.COM readers might have checked out the interview we did with Janet and Justin recently for the promotion of Your Place In The Sun. The record has some heavy riffage on it and at times is quite aggressive, yet retains some of the 80s rock glory that we loved.

Your Place In The Sun is a logical progression from its predecessor as Janet and Justin have evolved a bit as a writing team and as a duo. This album is a bit more eclectic, but still very much a record in the melodic rock vein, so it won’t alienate any of the ‘Foxheads’ that have followed Janet from her time in VIXEN. I lean more toward the heavier tunes with the face busting riffs that pummel your eardrums, while throwing some jabs at your melon concurrently. The title track sets up the album perfectly with the killer hook, chorus and tasty guitar work. I really enjoyed the album as a whole. My ‘go to’ songs on Your Place In The Sun are, “Your Place In The Sun”, “Assassinate”, which takes on this ‘lite’ industrial meets European pop vibe, guitar driven of course. “Standing” features a catchy intro that sets things up for the fantastic, memorable chorus and what a riff. “Kicks Me Back” showcases Janet’s skills as a guitarist as she tears through the solo, and “Flamethrower”, if there’s a tune that you could refer to as a ‘barn-burner’ on this record, this would be it. In our interview with KNAC.COM there was a reference made to the effect that there was a question if this album would have been created or not. Thankfully it was, had it not, it would have been our loss.

4.0 Out Of 5.0