Axel Rudi Pell – The Crest

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The steady stream of new Axel Rudi Pell releases continues with another new studio album, nearly a year and a half after the last one, Tales of The Crown, but with a compilation album and a live DVD in between. Retaining the same band, specifically the same singer in Johnny Gioeli, means The Crest sounds like more of the same when compared to the last few albums. Gioeli has been fronting Pell’s band for 12 years now, and it has given his releases a previously-unprecedented consistency, but also a certain level of repetitiveness. But for any fan of this kind of metal, Pell’s albums are nothing if not fun. The riffs are always great, the solos first-class and the songs themselves guaranteed fist-pumping concert favourites in the making. In a sense, Pell has reached the same position as Motörhead and AC/DC for whom, within reason, the same again is more than acceptable. Most bands never reach that, and the same album too many times is not well received, but Pell and Gioeli manage to make simple, involving, heavy metal effortlessly. The Crest is another example of that, be it Too Late‘s rather familiar riffs and hooky chorus, the brooding Dreaming Dead, clean, classically-influenced instrumental Noblesse Oblige, immediately catchy Prisoner of Love or Devil Zone, or extended power ballad Dark Waves of The Sea, everything is unmistakably Pell, but equally good. Another Pell album for Pell fans, and as good as almost any other.

Written by Andy Lye
More: 2010, Albums, Heavy Metal, Quick.Play Reviews, Axel Rudi Pell