When I received
\nLive In Your Face<\/i>, the latest release from Oakland hard
\nrockers Babylon A.D., the first question I asked is, “Why should
\nanyone care?” After all, this was a band who had only one major
\nhit, thanks to the inclusion of “The Kid Goes Wild” in the movie
\nRobocop II<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Don’t blame me for being skeptical. With the recent revival of
\nthe hard rock\/heavy metal genre, bands we had forgotten about for
\nyears are starting to crawl out from the woodwork – some of whom
\nshould have stayed there. So I tend to look upon any ’80s metal
\nband who return to this period of the genre with a questioning
\neye.<\/p>\n
Turns out that while
\nLive In Your Face<\/i> is by no means a groundbreaking album, it
\nis entertaining, and should provide the hard rock fan in your house
\nwith an evening of enjoyment. (If, of course, said person was into
\nBabylon A.D., they’ll enjoy this one thoroughly.)<\/p>\n
Taken from concerts around the U.S., the band – singer Derek
\nDavis, guitarist Danny DeLaRosa, guitarist\/vocalist Ron Freschi,
\nbassist\/vocalist Robb Reid and drummer Jamey Pacheco – plow through
\nten of their own songs and two covers as if they were still riding
\nthe crest of their popularity. For that, you have to hand it to the
\nband; they give 110 percent throughout this disc.<\/p>\n
\nLive In Your Face<\/i> mixes the all-out nut-rockers (“The Kid
\nGoes Wild”, “Bang Go The Bells”, “Hammer Swings Down”) with some
\nmore introspective works (“So Savage The Heart”, “Desperate”) and
\nmake it all sound pretty good. The ballads might scare some of the
\ndiehard headbangers away, but Babylon A.D. show they have guts to
\nplay an acoustic-based song in the midst of all the
\ntestosterone.<\/p>\n
I know that Babylon A.D. has never been a band for harmony
\nvocals, but hearing some on even one or two of these songs would
\nhave really helped out the overall sound. I don’t doubt that the
\nband is capable of handling harmonies; I just wonder why they don’t
\nutilize them.<\/p>\n
And a word of advice for Davis: If you don’t know the words to a
\ncover song, don’t sing it. Babylon A.D. plows through AC\/DC’s
\n“Girls Got Rhythm” like a fly smacking a windshield on a highway.
\nDavis blows a good portion of the second verse – though maybe only
\nthe diehard AC\/DC fans like myself would catch that. Their cover of
\nAerosmith’s “Rats In The Cellar” is much better, and is a lot of
\nfun.<\/p>\n
So getting back to the original question: Why should anybody
\ncare about Babylon A.D. and
\nLive In Your Face<\/i>? Simple: it’s an album that is fun to
\nlisten to, even if they’re not the most creative band in the genre.
\nThis one might not make them stars again, but it’s proof enough
\nthat the band is alive and kicking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25035,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6117],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-36240","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-babylon-a-d","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36240"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36240"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}