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Outloud: Let's Get Serious
 With some down time available in the Firewind camp it's time for the side projects to spend some time in the limelight as Gus G. releases a solo album and Bob Katsionis' band with Chandler Mogel unleashes their third album Let's Get Serious. In a not overly dramatic shock this is very much business as usual for the group. High quality, ultra tuneful hard rock, bordering on metal is very much in evidence once more – if you don't find the opening riff to "I Was So Blind" appealing then you'll probably enjoy eternity listening to the Smiths.
This is an infectious mix of gleaming guitars, gigantic choruses and cheesy, cliché-ridden lyrics with outstanding track being the wonderful "One More Time" which is one of those songs which you wake up singing in the morning and it never leaves your head. This song is followed by the equally tremendous "Bury The Knife" ensuring that the first half of the album is the stronger section. All in all this is another quality release from the band who really should be better known than they actually are and even the cover of OMD's "Enola Gay" isn't as annoying as other recent metal covers of 80s "classics."
Track Listing:
1. Death Rock!
2. I Was So Blind
3. One More Time
4. Bury The Knife
5. Like A Dream
6. It Really Doesn't Matter
7. A While To Go
8. All In Vain
9. Another Kind of Angel
10. Let's Get Serious
11. Toy Soldiers
12. Enola Gay
Added: June 30th 2014
Reviewer: Simon Bray
Score:  
Related Link: Band Facebook Page
Hits: 2421
Language: english
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Outloud: Let's Get Serious
Posted by Steven Reid, SoT Staff Writer on 2014-06-29 17:57:35
My Score:
My how time flies. It feels like merely moments ago that the Chandler Mogul led Outloud were promising to rock us to hell and back with their debut, yet this third release from the Greek based melodic rockers arrives some five years down the line; Love Catastrophe maintaining momentum by landing almost slap bang between the two.
Impressively however with Let's Get Serious, Outloud have done something that many (most) Melodic Rock bands struggle to ever do – find their own sound. Yes, this is a band whose aim is still to use the tried and tested framework of European MHR and infuse an American sheen into the results (think along the lines of TNT jamming with Girls, Girls, Girls era Motley Crue). However with much of LGS hammered out at breakneck speed, Outloud have discovered a niche currently unoccupied, with this third album almost suggesting what Dragonforce would sound like if they'd always wanted to play AOR!
It's a clever move, for while this release will still excite the Outloud and MHR faithful, there's just enough individuality here to invite a (slightly) wider audience onboard too. Guitarist, keyboard player Bob Katsionis (the guitarist in Firewind without a Gus or a G in his name) stamps his authority all over this album, the energy of his playing on both strings and keys the main feature of every song alongside the excellent voice of Mogul, the pair combining to wonderful, hard hitting, yet light hearted effect.
Highlights come thick and (very) fast, "Toy Soldiers" coaxing a fiery Tony Harnell (TNT) like vocal from Mogul, drummer George Kolias (the Nile drummer guesting on the whole album) pounding away as though he'd suddenly landed behind the kit in Primal Fear, while the trademark widdle of diddle guitar solo from Adrenaline Mob fret burner Mike Orlando smacks with equal fury. "Bury The Knife" adds a similar double kick drum attack to a slightly less furious, yet equally melodic, gang vocal led barrage, while "All In Vain" finally calms things down (a little) for a more straight up slice of keyboard highlighting Rock of Melodicness.
Countless Melodic Rock and Power Metal bands have in recent times decided that people are desperate to hear them hammer out torturous covers of 80s Pop/Electronica/New Romantic hits (why, why, why?????) and for the one and only time on Let's Get Serious, Outloud decide they have to play "follow the leader" (why, why, why, why, why??????????). The results are a straight up version, with a little added guitars, of "Enola Gay" by Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark. At the risk of being a killjoy, it's rubbish, pointless and as blatant an example of "everyone else is doing it, we better do it too" as you'll find and why Outloud, or any other band (Poison Ivy, Seven Thorns, Reinxeed....) think that Rock fans are clamouring for this stuff, I've simply no idea. As I've said before, stop it and stop it now. And relax....
Let's Get Serious finds a band bravely doing something a little different and doing it very well. Will it be enough to catapult Outloud right to the forefront of the Melodic Hard Rock scene? Well only time will tell. We can only hope so.
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