If we were to pit Europe’s hard rock scene of the past 15 years against America’s, it’s no secret who would win. While the US continues its bizarre decades long fixation with mundane riffs, derivative songwriting, and constipated grunts à la the bloated corpse of Kurt Cobain, Europe has managed to repurpose and reimagine the finest elements of 70s and 80s arena rock into something fresh and exciting. I’ve covered many of these bands in the past, and will continue to do so as long as these bands keep putting out new music. One such band is Kissin’ Dynamite.
Formed in 2007, Kissin’ Dynamite began as a meat and potatoes metal band. Their first two albums, Steel of Swabia (2008) and Addicted to Metal (2010), were musical love letters to the likes of Judas Priest, Accept, and Krokus, decked out in leather and studs galore. Come 2012’s Money, Sex & Power, the band started shifting towards a hard rock oriented sound. They’d fully embrace this change on subsequent releases, including their latest full length, Not the End of the Road (not to be confused with the similarly named KISS farewell tour, End of the Road…coincidence?).
Kissin’ Dynamite appear to be followers of Crazy Lixx’s “chorus first, rest of the song second template”, and by golly for most of this album does it work. The album starts out strong with a one-two punch in its hook laden title track and the Hysteria-esque “What Goes Up”, the latter boasting those reverb soaked drums and over the top gang vocals. Cuts like “Only the Dead” and “Defeat It” showcase AOR undertones, while “No One Dies a Virgin” is a throwback to their early headbanger days. And how can we ignore the stupidly catchy “Yoko Ono”, which features the chorus, “She’s a Yoko Ono. I’m under her spell.” Yeah, I guess you can be forgiven for thinking these guys are a parody band.
Unfortunately, Not the End of the Road falls victim to the same trap that many hard rock/AOR releases do, and that’s poorly written, formulaic ballads. I’d let it slide if only one of these clunkers made the cut, perhaps even two. Four? That’s where I draw the line. It’s not even that they’re bad or sappy per se. They just sound like any given latter day Bon Jovi or Aerosmith song that I’ve heard overplayed on mom oriented radio for the better part of my lifetime. Hell, “Good Life” sounds like a blatant rewrite of Steelheart’s “We All Die Young”, but I digress.
If you were to take out these four ballads and make a Spotify playlist of the remaining eight tracks, you’d have an all killer, no filler melodic hard rock outing, clocking in at roughly 40 minutes like the good ol’ days. I know I’d be giving Not the End of the Road at least a whole number rating higher if this were the case. But alas, here we have another casualty to the senseless label art of “filling the CD”. In the eternal words of YouTube legend Sammy Classic Sonic Fan, “When will you learn that your actions have consequences?”
6 out of 10
Label: Napalm Records
Genre: Hard Rock
For fans of: Crazy Lixx, Eclipse, H.E.A.T