German rock band boast female four-octave vocal power on their new album ‘Fire & Soul’, which is housed in a cover that offers a quite literal representation of the title, but in a way that is at least striking. But closer inspection reveals that the band is in fact ‘Guido Stoecker’s Bodyguerra’. Inside the CD booklet, behatted guitarist Guido stares into the distance with a piercing intensity, inscrutable, a burst of laser lighting penetrating a dense plume of smoke rising behind him. He looks menacing, as well as looking like he’s lived it.
Yet despite some time searching, it’s not clear what make Guido special, what elements of his resumé make it HIS band. Make no mistake, there’s some blistering guitar work on this album, but they’re no more integral to the sound than the chunky bass, solid drumming, or the versatile, and solid rock vocals brought by Ela Sturm. Sure, there may be more guitar – with some pretty epic and detailed solos, but all the fretwork in the world needs a band.
‘Danger Zone’ hits ‘full tilt’ mod early with a burly, churning guitar riff that’s fully hard, solid, meaty in its grunt and chug. ‘Hypocrites, parasites and liars are dangerous friends’, Sturm warns and sounds like she knows what she’s singing about.
She’s a strong vocalist, and the band are remarkably solid as a whole. Their musicianship is hard to fault… so what’s the beef?
Some of it’s just incredibly middling, bouncy, chorus-led rock that’s decidedly 80s in its stylings – ‘Magical Touch’, for instance, is pretty abominable in its excessive cheese quota, and it seems to alternate between kick-ass and rather standard. ‘Soultrail’ takes a turn toward darker territories, and is propelled by some meaty drumming and hefty riffage, and ‘Breakout’ is a straight-up driving rock tune, but the eight-minute title track is a sludgy, mid-tempo blues-rocker, and corn-laden lyrics like ‘running horses, free and wild / going crazy like a child’ do it no favours.
