Released by: Metal Mind Productions
Release Date: Out Now!!!
Genre: AOR
Links: http://mvdb2b.com/
Line Up:
David Glen Eisley – lead vocals, keyboards, harmonica
Craig Goldy – guitars
Gregg Giuffria – keyboards, backing vocals
Chuck Wright – bass
Alan Krigger – drums, percussion
Tracklist:
1. Do Me Right
2. Call To The Heart
3. Don’t Tear Me Down
4. Dance
5. Lonely In Love
6. Trouble Again
7. Turn Me Again
8. Line Of Fire
9. The Awakening
10.Out Of The Blue
There’s just something about reissues that I love so much…. For one you have albums like normally wouldn’t see the light of day if certain labels wouldn’t take time to appreciate the fact that you can find some many hidden gems in re-issue releases. So when Metalmind Productions, the Polish based company decided to re-release the Giuffria catalog; I got excited.
For those not relatively familiar with Gregg Giuffria well all you have to know is that the band itself created by Gregg in in 1982 after sharing a sting in a west coast band name Engel. Gregg took the helm on keyboards on the band’s self title debut and introduce lead vocalist David Glen Eisley, Alan Krigger on drums, Chuck Wright on Bass and a young Craig Goldy (Dio) on guitars. Giuffria’s self-titled debut album, Giuffria, soon followed peaking at #26 on the album charts while spawning two hit singles, “Call To The Heart” (Hot 100 #15) and “Lonely In Love” (Hot 100 #57).
The music here is a mix of Hard Rock and Metal with predominant AOR keyboards courtesy of Giuffria himself. On tracks like the introduction of the first opener “Do Me Right” you can glaringly hear the powerful keyboards leading the way. The soothing elements in their hit single “Call To The Heart” stands out as a radio friendly tune which of course gave the band some notoriety. The more moving pace of “Dance” features a more electro pop approach in it’s rhythm section and it makes for an precarious listening experience. The more Hard Rock churner of “Turn Me On” comes across as one of the more up tempo tunes on their debut, think Van Halen meets Kiss.
Even though Giuffria manage to obtain some notable success with this record and their following sophomore release “Silk and Steel”, the band dismantled and later was offered a new opportunity by Gene Simmons who gave them an alternative and it was replacing lead vocalist Eisley with Jame Christian, the rest is history because the band became known as House of Lords. Giuffria was featured on the first three HOL albums until the band’s eventual break up. For collectors who appreciate the genre of AOR/Melodic Rock what you have here is a solid record from top to bottom that probably should of been more appreciated then originally was. Also added caveat that only 2000 limited edition copies of this release are out there even a better time to grab one.
Some recent news on the band came down by former guitarist Craig Goldy on a radio metal show in 2010 stating talks about a reunion we’re in the works, so we may get to hear yet another reunion in the horizon.
Written by Denys
Ratings Denys 8/10
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