Released By : Retrospect Records
Genre : Hard Rock, Melodic Rock
Links : http://www.gunner-sixx.com/eng/index.php
Tracklist:
01. Intro
02. Holdin’ On
03. Desire
04. Till I Reach the End
05. While Dreams Have Been Gone
06. Secrets of Loneliness
07. Lady of the Night
08. Someone to Love
09. Dirty Love
10. Insane
11. Rockin’ in the City
12. Over Again
Following the success of re-issue record label Retrospect Records the decision was made to begin singing new acts that fit into the style of music that they covered and release some fresh, new albums in the melodic rock and hard rock genres. One of the latest bands to join the stable is Argentinian group GUNNER, who started life as a covers band under the moniker of GUNNER SIXX. Now they have written album of original material, dropped the SIXX from their name and released their first label-backed album.
In the early days the band covered material from acts such as POISON, MOTLEY CRUE, DANGER DANGER, BON JOVI, MR. BIG, EUROPE and other related bands. This gives you a good idea on what sort of material GUNNER have been writing, pure eighties inspired melodic rock, layered with a slab of sunset strip sleaze rock. There is also a very, very slight traditional heavy metal vibe throughout the album, mostly thanks to the vocals, but overall I would say the best way to describe them would be take some DANGER DANGER, mix it with a bit of PRETTY MAIDS and add an ever so slight helping of IRON MAIDEN. While this may sound like an exciting combination, this is definitely the work of a band in its early stages and there is a bit of work left to do if they are going to seriously try and push their way into the genre.
The songwriting is all pretty decent, if not a little bit predicable and common, most of the playing seems proficient enough, minus a few little times where the guitar work seems to struggle a bit. What I had the most trouble with was being comfortable with the accent on the vocals, which is quite strong in places making it sound almost out of key even.
DESIRE, LADY OF THE NIGHT, ROCKIN’ IN THE CITY and the big ballad WHILE DREAMS HAVE BEEN GONE are all good songs, but for each of these there’s another that just sounds like filler in comparison to some of the other great stuff that’s been injected into the genre over the last few years. While four good hardly makes for a worthy album, what it does accomplish is that it shows GUNNER to be a band that may well have enough to climb the ladder a bit. DESIRE certainly won’t be the album to break them in, but I’m sure fans of the dirtier side of melodic rock will enjoy this, and hey if an Argentinian accent on the vocals isn’t going to bother you, then the album will actually be pretty great.
Written By ZeeZee
Rating : 6/10
About Author
