Melodic Rock
Crusader Records
Release Date – November 4th 2022
Line Up:
Navid Rashid – Guitar/Vocals
Jeff Teets – Bass
Chris DeChiara – Drums
Tracklist:
1 – My Misery Calling
2 – Castles In The Air
3 – In The City Tonight
4 – One Million Reasons
5 – I Still Believe
6 – Under The Gun
Sorrow And Spire is the solo project of Navid Rashid is usually found fronting the prog metal band Iris Divine. Rashid decided to produce something more mainstream and went back to his love of melodic hard rock. To help in this project he got a rhythm section together and then enlisted the help of Trixter’s Steve Brown to produce the sounds.
‘My Misery Calling’ opens with a heap of riffage then steams into a heavy catchy rocker akin to W.E.T or Eclipse then ‘Castles In The Air’ is a wonderful radio-friendly rocker that brings a whole load of Night Ranger to the table with big riffs, vocal harmonies and subtle keys underneath. ‘In The City Tonight’ is ballad time and to be honest, it’s a bit generic then ‘One Million Reasons’ brings back the rock with some great lead playing from Rashid – it’s a fist-pumper for sure then things get a bit darker on ‘I Still Believe’ and brings a bit of heavy chug before final track ‘Under The Gun’ keeps the tension going on another huge ballsy rocker that has some obligatory ‘yeah’s and woooah’s’ but man it rocks hard.
On the whole, this is a fine release. My only minor gripe is the vocals are a bit inconsistent – they’re fine on the rockier stuff but not so much on the ballad, the guitars are right up front and some of the lead playing, and riffing are excellent. If you’re into melodic hard rock, then is an essential purchase. It’s immediate and catchy and has only six tracks which means you’ll play it a lot!
Score: 7/10
Reviewed by: Smudge
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