James Robledo is a busy guy. He’s in a band with Ronnie Romero, has appeared on the Chilean version of The Voice, and earlier this year, he was announced as the singer of Demons Down, a new band featuring guitarist Francesco Savino (False Memories), along with hard rock scene veterans guitarist Jimi Bell (House of Lords, Autograph), drummer Ken Mary (ex-House of Lords, Alice Cooper, Fifth Angel, etc.), and bassist Chuck Wright (Quiet Riot, bass, ex-House of Lords, etc.).
And if that doesn’t tell you what this record sounds like, then, ladies and gentlemen, I’ll give you this: it’s out on Frontiers and is produced by their in-house man Alessandro Del Vecchio.
So, if you know your hard rock, by now you’ll be thinking: classy, brilliantly played, polished, and inoffensive. And “Broken Soul” is all those things.
Its trump card, apart from all of that, is that it features his Sinners Blood (yep, he’s in another band) mate Nesson. What this means is that the guitar work is sensational throughout.
It all begins with the title track, and that basically is the one to listen to in order to decide whether it’s for you or not. Choppy, dark guitar with a hard edge, and soaring AOR vocals. Job done.
And if “Real World” comes in with a slightly metal edge, it reins it in, and “Right Here, Right Now” teases balladry, but not for long. Almost as if to underline that this is not that kind of record. It’s straight-ahead hard rock.
It’s good at it, too. Songs like “Over” fall in the same ballpark as Def Leppard’s work – big, testosterone-fueled, with riffs to match – and it might have been a gold disc in what we must refer to as “back in the day.”
“My Own Hope” is tailor-made for live performances, and when he sings “I’ll never give up who I am,” you understand that this is the artist doing what he dreams of. And there’s an authenticity about the sound.
Del Vecchio has a skill for this as well, and his keyboard underpins “Victim With No Crime,” while if “Dead City Nights” sounded any more ’80s, it would have shoulder pads on and be on the Rocky III soundtrack (it is so familiar you think it might be a cover, but it doesn’t appear to be).
The grandiose “Run And Hide” is the closest it gets to power balladry, but it’s a highlight, and fists are raised high for “To The End.” If that one is unapologetic, then that’s a good word for the record.
Yes, let’s not kid ourselves, you’ve heard this sort of stuff a million times before, but so what? Planet Rock played “The Trooper” yesterday, and it didn’t stop me from singing along.
This is hard rock the way it is meant to be. And, more importantly, the way everyone here wanted it to be.
Rating: 8/10
