Band:
Terry Ilous: (Vocals)
Glen Bridger (Guitars)
Greg Manahan (Bass)
Danzoid (Drums and Percussion)
Sam McCaslin (Keyboards)
Discography:
Wasted Time (2008)
Guests:
Jk Northrup Guitars and Bass
Larry Hart (Bass)
Eddy Jones (Drums and Percussion)
Marcus Nand (Drum loop programming, Keys and Guitars)
Mark Murtha (Keys,Electric and Steel guitar)
Info
Produced by JK Northup
Released 29/7-2011
Reviewed 24/8-2011
Links:
myspace
escape-music
Bridger has got their name from the founding member, called Glen (Bridger), and on their debut we can also hear the voice of Terry Ilous, the bass of Greg Manahan, keyboard from Sam MaCaslin and drums from the Danzoid. But Danzoid is not the name of some drum machine they've used, but a real person. It's still a while before Thanksgiving, but I'm pretty sure many will thank the gods (or God) for Bridger if you like heavy metal and/or hard rock. Bridger play hard rock without messing about and makes the hair on your neck stand straight - not from grandness but simply from their melodies. They've also chosen to celibrate the big man in the little body, Dio - whom has left us and with him a huge hole among the voices of heavy metal. however great Heaven And Hell is, their best songs comes from their own pencils. Songs like On The Ledge, Without A Sound and Tuesday Afternoon are so great! Real AOR played heavier and harder - it works superb! Such choruses… and such a voice he has!
I first heard Terry Ilous a couple of years ago when I got the XYZ album 'Letter to God' - my first experience with that band. Normally I wouldn't give away my dirty old shoes for a voice like the one he has, but on this album it sounds amazing! It's like acoustic experts has written the music for his and only his voice. Just superb! And the music is rhythmic and solid as a granite cliff placed in a bucket of food stabilizer. It's well composed and well made and it's not easy to find anything that sounds less than great, once you've come past the first two songs and left the boring for the better songs. The first two is hard to feel anything at all for, the others are a magnificent specimen from their genre and some of the songs are among the best of this year. High class delivery.
Glen Bridger is said to being inspired by Van Halen and such old guitar geezers. Honestly, I can't see much Van Halen here. However, I can hear them. Clever, ey? More to the point is that the guitars feel pretty much Van Halen, but I thankfully that's the only similarities with Bridger and van Halen I can find. They don't take of in to some kind of keyboard surrealism as Van Halen sometimes do. Bridger is more blues in their song structure and pretty straight on hard rock in low tempo. Mid-tempo or slower, there's no really fast song on the album. If I were to compared the tempo with wales I'd say Bridger is wales just surfing the surface, not fleeing from some psychopath tiger shark.
All in all though, 'Bridger' is a great album! If we only could forget the odd couple that opens the album - let's call them Tom and Jerry and they are a real pain in the bridge for the rest of this excellent album. It has a perfect length of 44 minutes (11 songs), offers complete instrumental performances, quality music and some real killer songs. It's pretty much everything an old hard rocker can wish for and the album is a sure thing if you like Uriah Heep, Thin Lizzy, van Halen and gary Moore. Not because Bridger sounds like any of these bands but because they build bridges between them and gets a result somewhere in the middle of everything. If you're one of those who fell for hard rock and heavy metal in the 80's and don't like this - maybe it's time to stop calling your self a hard rocker.
HHHHHHH
