Keys – The Grand Seduction
Keys – The Grand Seduction
Escape Music
Release Date: 19/07/24
Running Time: 59:43
Review by Dark Juan
Score: 8/10
Greetings, my dear friends! It’s been a while, hasn’t it? There are reasons for this, not restricted to going and spreading my friend Rowan Wildash’s ashes on Glastonbury Tor, my ancient camper van overheating on the way home and getting actually back to Yorkshire at 4am, when I was in work at 8am (for a 96-hour duty period which was absolutely horrific and took a toll on your good correspondent, who spent all day yesterday playing a computer game he hasn’t picked up for 20 years just to decompress), and the subsequent repair which has cost the princely sum of £3.15 because it was a single 8-amp fuse that lunched the entire cooling system! As you can imagine, this caused Dark Juan some hilarity at the storage yard where the Wicker Van lives, and while I was busily manically giggling at the fact the cooling fan was actually fucking working, I scared the crap out of the poor man who was fettling his van next door who thought that I was having some kind of mental breakdown and felt the need to make sure I was OK. My answer that the breakdown happened years ago and that I am in a constant state of mental crisis did nothing to help him feel more comfortable. Neither did the bout of vicious swearing that occurred when I realised I had forgotten my screwdriver so I could attach a piece of trim to the outside to prevent leaks.
Anyway, he was a consummate gentleman and beat a dignified and hasty retreat when I cried acclamation to the heavens because I had FINALLY discovered where the fucking dipstick was. Again, French engineering dictated that it was absolutely fucking inaccessible unless you are a Soviet-era gymnast with tiny hands and bones of flexible rubber.
None of this has any point, particularly. I just wanted to get it off my chest and Mrs Dark Juan hasn’t done or said anything amusing for a while and that has robbed me of my usual rich vein of comedy.
Keys are a band born of an idea from vocalist Jake E (Cyhra, Amaranthe, and many others) and keyboard-wizard Mark Mangold (Touch, Drive, She Said, Michael Bolton, Cher, Paul Rogers, and others) and they are an all-keyboard Hard Rock/ Heavy Metal band. Imagine, please, MASTER BOOT RECORD playing the kind of polished, very American Hard Rock of the late 80s, all hairspray and pouting, with a vocalist who appears to have been transplanted from that time period and appears to be on a one-man mission to drag us all back to the years of leopard-print spandex, holes in the ozone layer and horrific power ballads (‘Shining Sails’). The thing is, I’m not totally against it…
“The Great Seduction” is a record that forces you to take it in its own peculiar fashion. It is unashamedly retro and unapologetically melodic. Whooshing, wispiness and egregious keyboard lines abound and even the guitar solos are performed on keyboards. It’s like Rick Wakeman and his 3000 keyboards at every Yes gig. The record opens with the title track, and it is a fairly straight-ahead hairspray rocker with some serious Prog overtones as is the next song, ‘All I Need’, and although I have already mocked ‘Shining Sails’, it is an anthemic beast that would be the song that set an entire stadium alight as several thousand fans waved their lighters about.
Vocalist Jake E has the kind of raspy, yet able to soar among the clouds voice that was de rigueur for every 80s Rock vocalist and the music itself, although it has a curiously robotic quality due to it being entirely electronic, is actually pretty good and transporting Dark Juan back to the days of being a gauche teenager on the pull and failing miserably, downing bottles of vodka at Martyn’s house and then waking up in the bath sans pantalons – ‘Vortex’ reminding Dark Juan specifically of this, what with its choppy central riff, classic vocals harmonies and the kind of chorus that made panties dissolve at 400 yards. One can imagine the fans on stage, Jake E howling his heart out as his magnificent mane billows out behind him, sweat glistening on his impeccable cheekbones as he belts his fucking heart out under the kind of lighting rig that took 47 fucking people to set up, howling under green and blue and red lights. I fucking love this song. I mean, really FUCKING LOVE it, it has everything, power, pathos and a chorus that is just sheer mastery.
Until they ruin it with a fucking power ballad called ‘Skin and Bones’. It could be a Graham Bonnet ballad, except Graham Bonnet is God and he doesn’t do anything bad. It’s like Skid Row and Bon Jovi combined to write the ultimate (for ultimate read, absolutely godawful) power ballad and decided it would be great to shoehorn ‘Man Behind The Mask’-era Alice Cooper into the songwriting process. In fact, it would be a decent entrant to any 80s slasher soundtrack what with the middle section having mournful, church organ-esque sounds prowling around underneath the really overblown keyboard wankery, before we go back to Jake E melting teenage hearts and knickers on the vocal again. He can’t live without your love. I fucking can.
I fucking hate power ballads.
To our eternal gratification, Keys fucking pack it in with the dewy-eyed heartstring tugging on ‘Turn To Dust’ and instead turn in an unusual Electropop song that leans into the 80s science fiction aesthetic of Synthwave and bonds this to yet more classic 80s rock vocals that remind Dark Juan uncomfortably of Papa Emeritus whatever the fucking number he is this week and Ghost. And considering Dark Juan is firmly of the opinion that Ghost are the best thing to happen to Metal in the past ten years, this can only be a good thing. And the middle eight is Proggy as fuck as well. It’s a useful and timely palate cleanser from the saccharine awfulness of the power ballad that preceded it.
To sum this record up then – it harks back to the days of Jack Daniels, hookers, drugs and excess yet has an almost futurist edge at times, and because of it being based entirely on keyboards, an almost Krautrock quality that sometimes jars with the straight-edge Hard Rock arrangements, where the organic sound of guitar, bass and drums gives the music life, and the entirely electronic band that is Keys sometimes miss out on that peculiar alchemy. Being absolutely honest, because Dark Juan has actually really enjoyed this record, I can’t see there being a massive audience for electronic Tobias Forge-lite renditions of the over-produced 80s Hard Rock sound. However, if you are a fan of MSG, Alcatrazz, and Impellitteri, you might find much to enjoy. Dark Juan did.
The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System awards Keys 8/10, this number based entirely on the level of enjoyment Dark Juan gained from listening to Keys. Younger people who didn’t live through the 80s era of Hard Rock and Metal simply ain’t gonna get it. Bombast, swagger and extravagance are the order of the day here.
TRACKLISTING:
01. Grand Seduction
02. All I Need
03. Shining Sails
04. Switchblade
05. Vortex
06. Skin And Bones
07. Turn To Dust
08. Crazy Town
09. Thought We Had Forever
10. The World Is Ours
LINE-UP:
Jake E. – Vocals
Mark Mangold – Keys
Emanuel Bagge – Additional vocals and keys
Irwan Fabrien – Keyboard- guitar sound designer
Alex Landenburg – Drums
Adde Larsson – Drums
LINKS:
Disclaimer: This review is solely the property of Dark Juan and Ever Metal. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this review, unless you have the strict permission of both parties. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.
