[Review] JADED HEART - Guilty By Design (2016)
 To be honnest, I have no memories from the previous release, Fight The System that I bought. (oops!)It was, in my opinion, a chaotic situation when I learnt that keyboard player Henning Wanner left officially the band (in Common Destiny, he was credited so more or less involved). Same decision was taken by drummer Axel Kruse, one of the cofounders of the band. Axel Kruse was replaced by drum monster Bodo Stricker, but nobody really replaced Henning Wanner. Many bands are now working with samples on stage, so I can understand the logic behind this choice. Nowadays, you only need a pianist during recording sessions, in studios. Further more and surprisely, JADED HEART decided to include a second and unknown guitarist : Masahiro Eto. This will bring the band in another dimension : heavier than heard before! (for better or worse!) They are back, in March 2016, with their twelfth opus titled Guilty By Design (sixth featuring Johan Fahlberg as lead singer). And I plead guilty, your honour, 'cause I love it. I didn't expect such a record! I think than I love it because I can feel the situation is finally stabilized. A good atmosphere. It's heavy, it's melodic and it metals (or rocks)! After all those releases, the formula perfectly works. And that's may be where we do have a small problem : well-played, well-crafted but a lack of risk taking. In addition, some melodies have already been heard before. I thought that with a new line-up, they would try new musical orientations, they would integrate new elements. JADED HEART isn't an exception in music industry, they are suffering from a lack of creativity and/or originality. I'm not saying it's a disaster - as I wrote it previously, I really enjoy Guilty By Design -, only saying they can write better songs. If I have something to tell to the band, then it would be : beware of the autopilot syndrom! |
| Tracklist : 01. No Reason 02. Godforsaken 03. Seven Gates Of Hell 04. Remembering 05. Rescue Me 06. Salvation 07. No Waiting For Tomorrow 08. Watching You Die 09. So Help Me God 10. Bullying Me 11. This Is The End 12. Torn And Scarred 13. My Farewell (Digipak Bonus) 14. My Own Way Down (Digipak Bonus) | Line-up : Johan Fahlberg (voices) Peter Östros (guitars, keyboards) Masahiro Eto (guitars) Michael Muller (bass) Bodo Stricker (drums) Artwork by : Thomas Ewerhard Catalog number : MAS CD0932 Label : Massacre Records Release date : 2016 Produced by : JADED HEART, Erik Martensson Recorded at : Perfomance Studios in Germany |