Dare
Sacred Ground

Darren Wharton and his bad Dare returns with a new album called Sacred Ground and as always with Dare I have to wonder if they actually want to make anything but overproduced and a little bit sleepy soft rock. It has the Celtic touches both on the artwork and to the music. Of course when you get new stuff from Dare you have to wade through stuff about Thin Lizzy even though Wharton probably has made more impact through Dare as he never really was the famous name of Thin Lizzy and he has done much more as Dare. We reviewed Dare a few years ago and I have heard all their albums and for some reason I have never been as excited by these guys as it seems that many reviewers and fans seems to be, maybe that will change now with this new album.

 Musically it isn’t any different from any other Dare album, the fact is that this one sounds exactly the same as everything they have done before. Fans will rejoice. We get eleven tracks that are the same as they have done before but with new lyrics, we also get an excellent production and soft rock songs in low tempo, I think Darren can’t sing uptempo or more powerful songs but he sings really well on this and all of his other albums. I can’t exactly describe this as anything unique or original, it just sounds like everything I have already heard by Dare and the lack of originality feels almost painful at times – the excellent sound and production does help with that though.

When trying to write about this album I have to ask myself the question if I can really give an approved rating to another Dare album that sounds exactly the same as all the other ones. They may have their own style of sound but what is the point of that if you just repeat the same thing to death. But of course that thing is good so it isn’t all that bad, I would rather describe it as good and too good to give a bad rating. But it isn’t good enough to merit anything but a rating in the middle of the scale once again, just like last time around and these two albums sounds just about the same – only the lyrics are different. Strange thing though is that I seem to be fairly alone in this view as I was searching reviews for this album before starting to write and all reviewers thinks this album is brilliant, and all I ask myself when I read what they think is if they have another album with the same name as this one is not even close to what they claim it is. But fans will probably adore it as they have bought a half-dozen copies of the same album this far so why not buy another one?

This album lacks tempo and it lacks power, it feels sleepy and overproduced. It is a decent album to listen to and way too good to be bad but not good enough to really grab me either. Dare does what they have always done so those who fear change can breathe a sigh of relief as this album sounds exactly the same as the ones before it. Overproduced soft rock when it is at its most average, that is what I think of this one.

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