High Spirits is the heavy metal / hard rock outfit from multi-instrumentalist Chris “The Professor” Black. The first album was a compilation and it was released in 2009. Chris Black basically does everything. According to him 'The idea was to start a musical project that was entirely based on songs. No band members, no gigs, no photos, no artwork, and barely a logo.' But later on he decided to have a live band. High Spirits makes high energy hard rock, sometimes borderline power metal. I had actually never heard of them, but it was the only album this week that had any appeal to me, so I decided to give it a try.
Hard To Stop is High Spirits’ fifth full-length studio album following 2016's Motivator. It's a straightforward heavy metal album: No ballads, no complicated arrangements, or exotic instruments. Just 35 minutes of good and fun heavy metal. The longest song is 5 minutes. It's a perfect soundtrack for a summer festival. Even without knowing the songs, they all sound familiar and easy to follow. When I heard the first song, "Since You've Been Gone" I thought it was a Rainbow cover. Not only the title is almost identical, the voice sounds similar and so does the chorus. It's one of the most power metal songs on the album. There's also a lot of Maidenisms, for example the guitars on "Hearts Will Burn" are very similar to "Transylvania". But the album is also diverse, there's for example a punk-ish rock song "Now I Know". Some of my favorite tracks are "Restless" with cool drumming and fast pace, but also here I kept waiting for 'and wild' after 'restless' is sang during the chorus. The groovy "Face to Face", the AOR "Voice in the Wind" and the catchy "Midnight Sun".
My main issue with this album is that it sounds a bit half-pregnant to me. It wants to be power metal, but didn't quite go all the way there. That's probably because of the vocals. They sound strained and at the range limit. It reminds me of early Stratovarius before singer Timo Kotipelto joined.
Overall, everything is OK with High Spirits’ Hard To Stop, but that's also the problem, nothing really stands out. So, yes it's fun and if they were in a festival or opening for another band, I'd certainly watch them and have fun. For those looking for traditional metal good albums, that's a safe bet and there's not much else coming out these days anyway.
SCORE: 77/100
Genre: Heavy Metal
Released by High Roller Records on July 31st, 2020
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Rating System*
99 - 100 Perfect
94 - 98 Excellent
87 - 93 Great
82 - 86 Very Good
77 - 81 Good
66 - 76 Mixed
58 - 65 Bad
* slightly adapted on May 24th, 2020 due to statistical review
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