Heat
Night Trouble

Retro and nostalgia seems to be very popular these days, and why not? Looking at the best from some eras and adding them to the home or whatever makes for some interesting things. The German band Heat is one of those nostalgia driven bands who makes seventies hard rock music much in the veins of the likes of Led Zeppelin, Thin Lizzy, UFO, Scorpions and several others like that. They offer authentic sounds with the dated appearance in the music from that era always has and a vocalist sounding like he was recorded in that era. It is an album that in most regards sounds more like a remaster from the seventies than like a new production. Even the cover art looks like it’s dreaming of past glories forgetting the modern day improvements.

I am all for looking back at past grandeurs; I like watching older movies, listening to good bands from the past and such things. What I am more reluctant to care for is the reproduction of those old things, why would you make a movie or a music album in the same technique as in the past, and why make it look and sound like it was made forty years ago? There is no point in that. This is such an album that sounds like something from that era rather than something new and the feeling is that it offers nothing. Great new albums give you the sense of hearing something fresh and great for the first time, this album gives you the sense of “this again!” It isn’t really that funny, or that great because the bands of that era, those that were good had something special, something that this band will never be able to replicate as it has already been done – to death.

Heat feels a bit like a cover band and their approach falls under the same principle, the principle that you will not accomplish anything by copying what is already popular, at best it can lead to mild success. And this will probably only be successful amongst those old geezers who live in the delusion that it was better in the past, those refusing to live in the now and spend their days complaining about ridiculous things – they will play this album loud and keep moaning about that they don’t make it like they did. Frankly I grew tired of this album when I heard the first songs, it sure isn’t bad but when you have heard something millions of times it is not really that impressive anymore, this is nowhere near the highlight of the era that it tries to emulate. It is a decent piece of retro rock but nothing more.

No night trouble for me and sadly this is just another album for the digital thrash that will then be emptied to free up some 100 MB of hard drive space that can be used for promos of much more interesting character. I don’t deny that it is good seventies nostalgia but what the hell was better in the seventies? The music sure wasn’t…

HHHHHHH