Embedded Files
FIRSTBORNE “Lucky”
FIRSTBORNE “Lucky”
By Colonel Angus
The good doctor, Dr. Abner Mality, floated this release for me to review and told me that it was right up my alley. He also mentioned that the FIRSTBORNE singer is Girish Pradhan from GIRISH AND THE CHRONICLES and that he is a great vocalist from India. I don’t know anything about that band but the name looked familiar. I couldn’t place it but then I did my research and realized that I already loved Pradhan’s work on THE END MACHINE record “The Quantum Phase”. Basically, it was DOKKEN but with a young screamer to give it a more metallic edge. For this record, he is teamed up with drummer Chris Adler of LAMB OF GOD fame and a guitarist that I have never heard of call Myrone. With the LAMB OF GODconnection, I was expecting “Lucky” to be a bit more LoG metal but it is a very diverse album with each track exploring a new direction, yet remaining cohesive.
Right off the bat we are hit with a high energy, riff heavy track that pulls in a ton of melody without sacrificing its heaviness. “Again” is the kind of song that will certainly get you up and headbanging in no time which would also make it the perfect opening tune to start their concerts. It doesn’t take long to switch gears as the second tune “Rescue Me” has more of a heavy AOR sound that reminds me a lot of the band GIANT. Had this tune been released in the mid to late 80s, this would have been on heavy rotation on radio and MTV. Taking another left turn, “Shine” has a heavy and frantic chorus but the verses contains an almost late-60s/early 70s acid rock sound. You would think that this combination shouldn’t work but FIRSTBORNE finds a way to make it feel both modern and unmistakably rooted in metal’s rich tradition.
Reverting back to the opening tune, “Wake Up” is another fist-pumping metal workout that flies by before you know it. At just over three minutes, this song comes in and rips your face off and leaves before you know what happened. It is in stark contrast to the DOKKEN-ish “Normandy” which sounds like nothing else on the record but does feel like something that would have felt right at home on a disk by THE END MACHINE. “Only a Fool” is the first cousin to “Rescue Me” with the same sort of AOR-ish meets metal vibe. Both have a ton of melody and hooks that make them stand out from some of the other material on “Lucky”.
I’m not much of a ballad fan but I have to admit that “Heaven’s Return” is not only good after the first spin, it grows on you with repeated listens. Starting off slow, it builds into a bit of a rocker that sheds its ballad-like limits and pushes the track into full-blown metal territory. Another frenetic metallic workout comes roaring in with “Human Interrupted” which shows a more guttural vocal performance from Pradhan. He demonstrates that he is not just a metal screamer and can sing based on the song’s needs. The record finishes with a double dose of hard charging metal titled “Prometheus” and “Minefield” with the former being a chugging metal rocker (and quite heavy) while the latter is a punk vibed short ditty that borrows some lyrics from IRON MAIDEN’s “The Trooper”. It is quite the homage to the NWOBHM legends. So here we are presented with ten songs of heavy metal delight that veer off into different sub-genres but still sound like one cohesive artistic statement. I’ll give credit to the good doctor for floating this one my way because it has been in constant rotation ever since.
Report abuse