Tuesday, May 17, 2016

TREAT: ”Ghost Of Graceland”

Rating: RRRRr
Label: Frontiers
Review by Kimmo Toivonen

One of the most eagerly awaited albums of 2016 for me has been the new one from Treat. A couple of years ago the band was determined to call it quits and played their Farewell tour. The overwhelming response at their last gigs made the change their mind, and now they’re back in action with ”Ghost Of Graceland”. Good for them and even better for us, since they prove with this album that there’s still life in this old dinosaur from the eighties.

In my books, Treat’s previous album ”Coup de Grace” (2010) is one of the finest comeback albums of all time. ”Ghost Of Graceland” isn’t quite as marvelous but it’s still a very good album. The overall feel is maybe a little darker and moodier, but fear not, there’s still plenty of massive choruses and melodies. ”I Don’t Miss The Misery”, ”Do Your Own Stunts”, ”Inferno”, ”Alien Earthlings” and ”House On Fire” to name a few… I also want to mention ”Together Alone”, a fine ballad sung by the band’s main songwriter, guitarist Anders Wikström.

While I believe that there won’t be many albums that will top this one this year, I’m not going to give this the FULL 5R rating. The fifth ”r” is a small one because there are a couple of songs I tend to skip sometimes but maybe more significantly, some of the lead vocals are heavily doctored. I do realize that most studio recordings these days are polished and tweaked, but when the results are this obvious and unnatural sounding… It starts to bother me. Having said that, I can’t complain about the songs, they’re still pure 100% Treats.

https://www.facebook.com/treatofficial/

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