Oliver Weers – Evil’s Back

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Danish melodic rock vocalist Oliver Weers has spent the last couple of years recording the follow-up to his 2008 debut solo album Get Ready, which featured a somewhat more star-studded backing band than new effort Evil’s Back, and a much more appropriate title at that. Gone are former Whitesnake duo Tommy Aldridge (drums) and Marco Mendoza (bass), and current Glenn Hughes guitarist Søren Anderson, and in come the relatively unknown Anders Borre on bass, Morten Hellborn on drums and guitarists Laki Ragazaras and Anders Bo. As for the title, the upbeat feel of the term “Get Ready” is far more applicable to Weers’ music than more or less anything containing the word “Evil”. Things start out suitably heavy and dark, suggesting that Weers is going to go for an overall darker tone with his second album, thus warranting the title, but it doesn’t last long. After a short intro the albums muscular, brooding title track, equally grooving All My Life, and Pure Inc.-esque Without You set a high standard which the rest of the disc can’t match up to, where Weers unfortunately suffers from a dated, ’80s sound. Need It Bad, Devil’s Chain and Much Too Much are a prime examples, and Hero languishes a little in the middle ground between a great riff and an ’80s chorus. It has to be said that even in these cases though the music is lively and upbeat, well played, and guaranteed to appeal to fans of that older hard rock sound. It just won’t please the larger faction of hard rock fans who disapproved of the poppy ’80s and now consider the style a joke. Bland ballads like Beautiful Rain and Rainbow Star won’t help either. Fans of the harder edge (which Weers does much better than the softer stuff) have to wait until track eleven, Demolition Man, to hear something similar again. In ballad terms they will also approve of closer Rainbow Star, which combines beautiful clean guitars with very heavy passages. The heavier tracks are melodic enough that fans of the kind of artists found on Metal Heaven’s parent label AOR Heaven are likely the be the more satisfied here. Metal fans will wonder why the middle of the album is such a cop-out after such great tracks at the beginning and end.

Written by Andy Lye
More: 2011, Albums, Hard Rock, Quick.Play Reviews, Oliver Weers