HARDLINE — Monumental (review)

HARDLINE — Monumental album cover Album · 2011 · Heavy Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
2.5/5 ·
Stephen
'Monumental' is the follow-up album to Norway's hard rock act, Hardline, and probably many will get confused with Neal Schon's previous band that's releasing the sensational album, "Double Eclipse", back in 1992, but this one is a completely different beast. Their history goes back in the mid 80s, and went black out before reforming again to launch this in 2011.

Before listening to this album, reading them as a hard rock band from Norway will pop me an imagination that they'll sound like Wig Wam, Evenrude, or TNT, but when 'Shout' cracking in, looks like they're in the heavier non-melodic territory. Fine by me, it has great verse, good chorus, and also very nice solo, sounds promising. But then when 'Go To Waste' started with a generic riffs and very average arrangement, top with another sensational-riffs-but-dull-composition of 'Call My Name', I started to worry that this isn't as good as I expected.

the title track, 'Monumental', started to picking up the momentum, a Maiden-influenced track enhanced with quite a complex time signature change, great track here, but 'Still More Days' is sliding down the hill again. The next four tracks are totally passable, lots of grungy feel and 'Showdown' can even be considered a Pearl Jam left over.

This album has a great production and to sum up their music, Hardline is right when they say they're rooting in hard rock and traditional heavy metal, but they also flirted with alternative feel which might not a good idea for hardcore 80s fanatic and may alienate some fans with it. For me, the third album needs to pay a huge attention to the songwriting as there are too many average tracks here. Good to see them back in action again, but hopefully the next one is much better.
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