ALBUM REVIEW: Blackrain – Dying Breed

When you think of French music ‘Rock’ isn’t normally the first genre that comes to mind, but for over a decade now Blackrain has been delivering the goods on behalf of our Hard Rocking French brothers in arms.

As someone who has followed Blackrain over that journey I must admit I’ve always been impressed by their drive and the spiky, sleazy Rock they put out. 2019 sees them, if not quite at their creative peak, then not at all that far from the summit.

So what do we have? A pretty fine album is the short answer, in which Blackrain manage to stay true to their ‘never give in, never compromise’ attitude and also changed producers from the legendary Jack Douglas to the more Sleaze-cred credentialed Chris Laney who not only produce arguably Blackrain’s best to date ‘License To Thrill’ but the man who has of course produced bands like Crashdiet, Zan Clan and most prominently Crazy Lixx.

Things kickoff here with the infectious title track replete with gang chant and AC/DC meets Motley thrust. It’s a nice start to the album and the Ratt meets Crue-like riff that opens ‘Hellfire’ should have you entering the 80’s Rock comfort zone. It’s another solid song and  somehow Swan’s vocals seem more restrained than on previous releases and to be honest it suits the music here.

There’s plenty more great stuff to come though which makes me think this will be a contender for our end of year ‘Best of’ chart. Take for instance ‘Blast Me Up’ which again takes that more polished, melodic route, I sense a change in direction here to knock off any perceived rough edges and get Blackrain into that lauded group that contains bands like Crazy Lixx, Crashdiet, Reckless Love and co.

Best of the rest might just be the ballad ‘All Angels Have Gone’ the lightest moment on the record, and conversely ‘Public Enemy’ which might just be the heaviest; or the wonderfully overblown ‘Rock Radio’ which had me thinking of Jim Steinman meets Sweet, albeit with an 80’s Sleaze glass, as the chorus hit (You’ll hear it too I swear).  For me though the cherry is ‘We Are The Mayhem’ a song which has more than a shade of early Bon Jovi and one which simply won’t leave your head once you’ve heard it.

Tracklisting: 01. Dying Breed 03:50 | 02. Hellfire 04:04 | 03. Blast Me Up 03:39 | 04. Nobody Can Change 04:19 | 05. Like Me 03:43 | 06. All Angels Have Gone 04:11 | 07. We Are The Mayhem 03:31 | 08. Rock Radio 03:36 | 09. Public Enemy 03:59 | 10. A Call From The Inside 04:24 Digital Bonustracks: 11. Jenny Jen 03:24 | 12. Ca Plane Pour Moi 03:11