Jaded Heart
Guilty By Design

Guilty by Design, is that what they are Jaded Heart? This is their twelfth album since the debut was released in 1994 and though they are only one member left from the original band they have kept doing the same thing (more or less) for all of those albums so maybe they are guilty by design. But it may also be that they assume we expect them to be just that and they are really doing something exciting and new now. At least we can hope because despite their latest good efforts they have started to feel a little repetitive and tired.

For those hoping I would write that Jaded Heart has reinvented or reinvigorated themselves can quickly put that hope away as they have not, this is more of what we have already heard from the band. It is melodic hard rock/heavy metal with potent choruses and lots of energy, kind of how they have always done their music. Great sound, great production, very strong vocalist, you can say many positive things about this production – but the songs, that is a completely different matter.

I think that this is an album that is average at best, and that comes from a writer who has followed this band for quite some time and have liked them a lot as well. I just think that it seems as though they have ran out of ideas, the artwork is an improvement and so is the sound but the songs feels a bit tired and uninspired, maybe their metal hearts have become a little bit jaded. Fans of the band might like it though, after all it is more or less what they have always done so unless you hope for something new you would not be that disappointed.

A bit of a disappointment to me, I was hoping for signs of renewed life in this band but there is nothing to find here. This album’s songs are decent but none of them really strikes a chord with me, I find myself loosing interest pretty quickly and I find my thoughts drifting away from what to write about the album and into other things. It is not really that bad an album, it just feels tired and without inspiration so I wouldn’t describe it as good either. In the end I don’t really think this album has that much to offer, we have heard it all before and it was better then.

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