Sometimes a record really evokes a time and a place, often without rhyme or reason. One such album is Toby Hitchcock’s debut solo album Mercury’s Down which I listened to incessantly on a longish holiday which I undertook in the Canary Islands in 2011. Bizarrely (and potentially embarrassingly) on my recent trip to Fuerteventura it was Ted Nugent’s most recent platter which I kept returning to! Putting all that aside I consider Mercury’s Down to be a bit of a genre classic. Aided by Erik Martensson it was a muscular contemporary version of the melodic rock genre.
Martensson is nowhere to be found here which has made some people in the tiny melodic rock fan base almost beside themselves with anger. In his stead we get Swedish producer Daniel Flores (Murder of My Sweet, Mind’s Eye, Find Me) and Reckoning is a very different beast. Hitchcock’s voice is still supreme and with Michael Palace adding guitars a poor album was never going to occur. Whether it attains the heights of Mercury’s Down is up to the listener’s personal taste and I’m not sure thus far. If we could give a 3.75 score that is probably what I would give Reckoning at the moment whereas the debut would merit a 4.5 at least.
There is much to enjoy and admire on Reckoning, not least the big ballad " Me How To Live" which would probably have crossed over back in the day. In fact, the opening four tracks are top quality melodic rock but the quality dips slightly in the second half of the album although "Serenity" and "Queen Untouchable" are catchy and rocking enough. It was probably asking too much to repeat the majesty of Mercury’s Down but Hitchcock and his cohorts have had a pretty good go here.
Track Listing: 1.No Surrender
2.Promise Me
3.Show Me How To Live
4.Behind The Lies
5.Fighting For My Life
6.Serenity
7.Queen Untouchable
8.Gift Of Flight
9.Don’t Leave
10.This Is Our World
11.Someone Like You
Added: February 15th 2019 Reviewer:Simon Bray Score: Related Link:Frontiers Records Hits: 911 Language: english
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Sometimes a record really evokes a time and a place, often without rhyme or reason. One such album is Toby Hitchcock’s debut solo album Mercury’s Down which I listened to incessantly on a longish holiday which I undertook in the Canary Islands in 2011. Bizarrely (and potentially embarrassingly) on my recent trip to Fuerteventura it was Ted Nugent’s most recent platter which I kept returning to! Putting all that aside I consider Mercury’s Down to be a bit of a genre classic. Aided by Erik Martensson it was a muscular contemporary version of the melodic rock genre.
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