Barden, Gary: Eleventh Hour

The last time I stood toe-to-toe with Gary Barden was in 2007 and the Love and War album which was released by Escape Music, I believe, under the name Gary John Barden. According to Escape Music, "Gary now presents us with Eleventh Hour which features 11 tracks of hard rock brilliance. These new songs are fresh and exciting and Gary has poured his heart and soul into them. Once again Michael Voss is ever present and the end result is just perfect. This is a hard hitting rock album that highlights what a great singer Gary is, his contribution to the British rock scene is just legendary."

I'm not sure whether Eleventh Hour justifies the epithet, "hard rock brilliance" although time will determine the outcome of that one but it is surely one of the better pieces of Barden's work since the 1980's. From the melodic, catchy "Fallen by the Wayside" to the ultra-heavy "Before the Eyes of the World" we find an artist fairly close to the top of his game.

My colleague Dean Pedley recently described Eleventh Hour as finding Barden," in largely downbeat mood with songs dealing with war and conflict." A swift look at the song titles would superficially suggest an albums worth of doom and gloom but in fact it turns out to be quite the contrary even when the "Child of Sorrow has to, beg, steal and borrow," such is the strength of the songs which juxtapose the aforementioned war and conflict with soaring melodies which make Eleventh Hour well worth purchasing.

Track Listing:
1- Baghdad
2- Fallen by the Wayside
3- Child of Sorrow
4- Would You Wanna Do
5- We are Dead
6- All in
7- Blackmail
8- Shine a Light on Me
9- Easy Does It
10- Before the Eyes of the World
11- Don't Take Me for a Loser

Added: October 18th 2011
Reviewer: Simon Bray
Score:
Related Link: Artist MySpace Page
Hits: 3113
Language: english

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