LONG SHADOWS DAWN
Isle Of Wrath
Frontiers Music Srl - 2021
The pairing of singer Doogie White (YNGWIE MALMSTEEN, MICHAEL SCHENKER FEST, RAINBOW) and PERSUADER guitarist Emil Norberg may have been brought to fruition as "A Project by Serafino Perugino" under the Frontiers banner but given the fact the album is almost entirely written and performed by the duo, the Isle Of Wrath album does tend to stand at least a little bit apart from the standard "Frontiers Project" release.
The album opens up with the song "Deal With The Preacher" and while it does share a title with that classic BAD COMPANY song, the song is cast from a dramatically different songwriting tact. While the group is billed as drawing from both 70's classic rock and 80's metal for inspiration, the opening track sets a blazing hot musical pace that amply demonstrates the project's modern day feel. It's a nice way to kick off the album to be sure.
While Isle Of Wrath does stand apart from a glut of soundalike Frontiers projects, I do have to say the album was a bit of a hit and miss affair at times. The song "Raging Silence" fell flat for me with the song more "silent" than "raging" despite the uptempo drive of the music. The same could be said for "Hell Hath No Fury" which seemed to lack any kind of "fury" at all. As for the one true ballad on the disc, "Never Wrote A Love Song"... other than one lyric line everything about this song was pure manipulative claptrap. The line that did stick with me was "We all have pages where the ink won't dry" and having had some experience with what the line is seemingly meant to convey, it's a jaw-droppingly great lyric. If only it had come wrapped inside of a better song.
I will say that my initial impression of the song "Where Will You Run To?" got better with each successive spin of the album. At first I really didn't care for it but as I listened to the song over and over, I found that it grows on you.
Doogie White does a fine job here (he co-wrote the majority of the album with Emil Norgren) vocally and the the album shines brightest when the soundtrack cuts loose musically. There's an adventurous feel to the music on the song "On The Wings Of Angels" that grabs the listener and takes them along each ebb and flow of the track.
Like I said, when the music cuts loose, the album's material is so much better. This is most evidenced by three consecutive tracks at the start of the second half of Isle Of Wrath's track listing.
"Master Of Illusion" is probably the song I would pick as my favorite on the album. It gets you amped up and the guitar solo is of particular note here. "Hallelujah Brother" and "Steeltown" follow a similar song style as "Master Of Illusion", though careful to differentiate themselves and not sound like carbon copies. The latter two tracks keep the energy level flying high throughout and leave you just completely jazzed up after listening to them.
The album's closing song "We Don't Shoot Our Wounded" is another blitz filled uptempo track and that lets Isle Of Wrath go out on an adrenaline fueled high.
While I think Isle Of Wrath has some clearly "inferior" sounding songs on it, there is also a bevy of tracks that you will find worth investigating on your own too.
3.9 Out Of 5.0
