Times Of Grace – Songs Of Loss and Separation
10 years is a long time between albums.
The debut album “The Hymn Of A Broken Man” came out in 2011.
Have I mentioned that Adam Dutkiewicz is a great riff meister?
All different musical roads lead to here. A combination of country, blues, metal and rock.
For those looking about positive messages, this isn’t the album for you. It’s melancholy lyrics and metal like riffage is music to make you crash your car. You can feel the sadness, a pain at the world, society and the various demons within the mind.
It’s gloom and doom, but inspirational as well.
The album title is indicative of the theme. And having gone through loss recently this album is becoming my companion, riding shotgun with me.
So I press repeat.
Free Spirits Rising
An Australian artist who releases a song every 6 weeks or something like that and plays all the instruments.
Its raw sounding hard rock but the music is melodic and catchy even though the vocals can be hit and miss.
Check out songs like “Outside The Lines”, “It’s OK”, “My Destiny” and “It Starts With Me”.
It’s the kind of metal I like.
Soen is a Swedish progressive metal supergroup consisting of various extreme metal musicians. Their debut album “Cognitive” came out in 2012.
It was like hearing Tool and I was all in.
“Tellurian” came out in 2014 but their rise really started with “Lykaia” in 2017 and “Lotus” in 2019. And in 2021, we have “Imperial”.
And this one is more metal and hard rock with some progressive grooves and textures.
Lumerian
How good is the Intro riff?
And the Chorus, so melodic and haunting.
In the middle, the band introduces its main dynamic, which is heard throughout the album, in which they quieten down the song and rebuild it.
Deceiver
It’s almost Disturbed like from the “Believe” album in the Intro.
Monarch
That Intro riff. So heavy and intricate.
The only thing left to do is to listen to it again.
James Durbin’s covers of Judas Priest on American Idol got me interested. The YouTube videos got some traction here in Australia.
His debut album released in 2011, “Memories Of A Beautiful Disaster” rocked hard and I was a fan. “Celebrate” in 2014, lost me as it went way to poppy.
Then he hooked up (surprisingly) with Quiet Riot and he made me a fan again with the very underrated and forgotten “Road Rage” album released in 2018. “Space Cowboys” came out a year later but shit was going down in the Quiet Riot camp, as Durbin left the band before the album was released and drummer Frankie Banali was fighting for his life but we didn’t know it at that point in time.
And here we are with Durbin.
Durbin possesses a great vocal range and his prowess on the guitar is evident on this album. As a songwriter, all songs are written by Durbin.
If this is his first entry into the realms of Metal, then I will eagerly await his next.
Check it out.
destroyerofharmony 
Mike knows I hate Durbin in QR. I thought those albums were some of their worst ever and I still think that (and so does my dog). I liked his debut, he lost me on the second as well and this new one I felt like he was trying too hard to be metal. There are some good songs though. Glad you liked it though.
Yes I agree there was a “try hard” attempt to be Metal and towards the end those lyrical references to the classic 80s songs was a bit too much.
But every artist needs to start somewhere and hopefully this is a start of his Metal phase.
Because the dude can play and he showcases his guitar playing ability.
I didn’t realize he was playing guitar on some of this. Cool!
10 years between albums? When I was back in Highschool I remember the 8 years between Boston albums (Don’t Look back – Third Stage) was a long time as that was a discussion in the school cafeteria when all these other bands were putting out records yearly in the mid 80s..
Ah I miss those high school cafeteria times
Thanks for giving James Durbin some love! I’m so happy he returned to his hard rock/heavy metal sound with ‘The Beast Awakens.’ He talked about his love for heavy metal so much during his time on ‘Idol,’ so it’s good seeing him do what he loves. I forgot he did an album or two with Quiet Riot, I might check that out.