To be honest with you, if you’ve got the balls to call your band Iconic, you’d best be good.
These five are.
Once upon a time, back in 2022, Nathan James, Michael Sweet, Joel Hoekstra, Marco Mendoza and Tommy Aldridge went into the studio and emerged with Second Skin. Four years later, the same five musicians return with II, released on July 31 through Frontiers Music Srl.
Forget any cynicism about “supergroups”. This is Frontiers Records; it’s what they do. Simply enjoy some hard rock played brilliantly by musicians who understand precisely what it requires.
“Cry No More” immediately proves the point. It is grand, polished and unashamedly built for enormous stages. Make no mistake about it, either: Nathan James can still hit those high notes. My God.
“All I Want” is hard rock from the top drawer, its sublime twin-guitar work allowing Sweet and Hoekstra to dovetail perfectly. Perhaps because Sweet, a founding member and frontman of Stryper, is concentrating solely on his guitar rather than singing here, II feels very much like a guitar record. It sounds absolutely huge, with “Open My Eyes” even helping itself to a power-metal chorus.
“Tears Keep On Falling” isn’t a million miles away from power-ballad territory, but it is superbly done and never becomes mawkish. “Take Me To The Place”, though, inhabits the album’s natural hinterland: fast, furious and packed with licks, riffs and dazzling solos.
“S.O.S.” is proud to swagger. Marco Mendoza’s bass playing is sensational, providing a mighty foundation beneath another chorus designed to fill arenas. At the risk of boring everyone by repeating myself, the guitar solos are extraordinary.
That is the thing about II: the people involved are so skilled that there probably isn’t anything they couldn’t do. Yet “Nothing Left For Me” carries a searching quality which stops all that technical excellence from feeling clinical. For all the gloss, there is still something restless at its heart.
Three-fifths of Iconic have been members of Whitesnake at one point – and, let’s be fair, James should have been – so it is perhaps inevitable that “Far Away” recalls Coverdale and company at their most imperious. Coverdale would have killed for a song like this.
“Valley Of Lost Souls” talks of lonely cowboys and carries something of the gunslinger about it, adding a little dust and danger to the record. Then comes “Written In The Stars”, possessed of a magnificent melody. “Finally found where I belong,” sings James, and perhaps he has.
“Heart Of Stone” closes matters in exactly the manner you would expect: muscular, melodic and immaculately performed. Certainly, melodic hard rock has rarely been done better this year.
II is never going to win any awards for originality, nor is it trying to. Consider this your regular reminder that not everything has to be avant-garde.
It is also a reminder that sometimes great rock musicians simply want to play great rock music.
II is as straightforward as its album title and every bit as superb as you expected.
Rating: 9/10
