It has been a while since we last heard new music from Lillian Axe, but the wait is over as they finally release their long awaited 10th studio album ‘From Womb To Tomb’ on Global Rock Records on August 19th.
Indeed it’s been 15 years since the classic ‘Waters Rising’ which featured then new vocalist Derrick LeFevre who went on to feature on the follow ups ‘Sad Day on Planet Earth’ (2009) and ‘Deep Red Shadows’ (2010). And a lot more has happened in the interim with first Ronny Munroe coming and leaving in 2010 without recording and then Brian Jones talking the helm in 2011 and featuring on the last studio album ‘XI The Days Before Tomorrow’ (2012).
Then after an announcement in 2011 came a brief get-together of the original line-up of the band featuring Steve Blaze, Johnny Vines, Danny King and Michael ‘Maxx’ Darby to record an album of classic unreleased songs from the past called ‘Circle of Light’ which came out a year later. ‘One Night in the Temple’ an acoustic live album then dropped in 2014 after some hometown shows.
Then in 2017 Steve announced that the band was finally recording a new song called ‘The Weeping Moon’ to feature on the forthcoming compilation of epic ballads to be called ‘The Forgotten Art of Melancholy’ which still awaits a release date. A year later the new record ‘From Womb to Tomb’ was announced – the name stuck even if the original release date didn’t. Then in 2020 another vocalist departed when Brian Jones left the band amicably after nine years and a solitary album.
And here we are in 2022 days before release with a new album and new vocalist in ‘Brent Graham.’
If you’ve followed Steve Blaze over the years you’ll know ‘that sound’ and ‘From Womb to Tomb’ begins beautifully with the piano-led ‘Breathe’ which features some lovely strings before vocal and guitar burst in. It’s hypnotic and its repeated melodic refrain make it more of an opening soundscape to set the scene and more of an extended intro than a song in itself.
The meatier five and a half minute ‘I Am Beyond’ is more traditionally structured and you’re immediately taken by Brent’s vocal which sits comfortably in the mix. There’s a delicacy here too and those keys and strings again adding ore layers to the already tantalising refrain.
The intriguingly titled ‘Neverending Me (Dempsey’s Kick)’ which I was already presuming was dedicated to the New Orleans Saints’ Tom Dempsey before I heard it, follows with voice and piano before the Progressive changes kick in. It’s very ‘Axe’ and if I’m honest by the end of the song I’m not quite sure if it does reference Mr Dempsey! What it does have though is a wonderful almost neo-classical guitar and drum break that works so wonderfully well.
Track 4 is just called ‘A’ is 39 seconds of spooky atmosphere before ‘The Golden Dragon’ takes centre stage. It riffs like vintage Twisted Sister and has a lead that recalls a metallic Malmsteen, but the verse is pure ‘Blaze’ and the refrain bounces along with a nice quasi-religious melody cutting though. It’s a big one!
‘Piercing The Veil’ is simply another intro, this time to the stripped back ‘Migrating North’ which starts almost like a poem set to gentle piano for a number of verses before it gathers some steam almost at the five minute mark. It’s a nice slow burn but just a little to slow for me before the solo comes to lift it up.
‘No Problem’ comes as a surprise, gentle, acoustic strummed, and rather succinct clocking in at under two and a half minutes before ‘Dance of the Maggots,’ an epic at seven and a half minutes that opens with a chorus of Georgian chants and builds into a monster of a song. It’s a Blaze classic and it’s at this point that you realise that you can’t take the songs here out of context or in isolation – this is an album meant to be played from start to end, and whilst there is no strict narrative the themes build and ebb and flow with the songs.
‘Fall of the Human Condition’ opens with a cuckoo clock and grinds along at midtempo before a fiery solo cuts it in half with a momentary pedal to the floor. If there is one observation I would make it’s that a lot of the tempo here is stalled in that mid pace and whilst the harmonies and guitars especially alter the dynamics the meat and potatoes here are all firmly set in that middle ground.
‘The Great Deception’ has a nice rhythm and is almost Folky in attitude before kicking into a nice beat, it’s a great song and it’s only a gentle rock and roll to the acoustic interlude ‘Endless Green Fields’ which in turn threads into the wonderful ‘Feelings of Absinthe’ which has to be my favourite here. It’s a song with a real old school Lillian Axe vibe, not afraid to take a chance on turning a commercial cheek. It also ups the tempo a little which really lifts it and the lyrics are killer. In short it ticks all the boxes.
‘Finally, Clarity’ mixes up the intros as a spoken word piece that contemplates the meaning of life before ‘From the Mountaintops’ eases gently in with voice and piano and continues that contemplation before the orchestration kicks in to underline the lyrics, its a melancholy song that again uses thos great choral vocals to great effect as it climbs and builds.
Final track ‘Ascension’ is more hopeful still. It flows and ebbs builds and falls away, musically enticing it’s a huge song to end.
It’s been a long time in coming and to me this sounds like the most personal album Steve Blaze and co have given us so far, lyrically it’s hinged on the journey of life and whilst sonically it may not offer an easy ride, eschewing poppier references and immediacy for real connection, as a piece in it’s entirety it’s beguiling. If you love the Proggier end of Lillian Axe, the epics and the ballads of the past then this is closer to that and the later albums than the major label albums of the past.
Welcome back!
7.5 / 10