Axel Rudi Pell
XXX Anniversary Live

“Does anybody remember 1989? When Axel Rudi Pell released his first solo effort “Wild Obsession”, the Berlin Wall had just come down. It’s been ages, right? And the world has changed. Axel Rudi Pell hasn’t.” That was the first few sentences from the press sheet that accompanied this album, and I found that I was wondering about who wrote that press text. It is not well spaced, just a mass of text that is annoying to look at and read. And it says strange things – is it really good that a musician hasn’t changed in thirty years? He has about 20 releases in that time are they just the same album remade? That would mean that Pell is more of a craftsman like a carpenter or a welder than an artist – just a musician painting by numbers.

And there are more strange things in this material, like needing to write that Pell has sold more than 1,6 million records – that would mean that this album will sell about 80 000 copies. And how about this?: “Pell also has a ridiculous amount of online streams: his songs have been streamed more than 37.5 million times, figures he would never have dreamt of when he first started out.” It might be because the thought of streaming music didn’t really exist when he started out. Just a note, Zombie by the Cranberries has almost a billion streams on youtube and Bad Wolves version of the same song about a quarter billion streams, is that more ridiculous? But what about this musical craftsman, is his music anything to listen to? Perhaps one of the studio releases is but this live album isn’t.

The sound is okay for a live recording, the songs sounds okay, the vocalist is okay, Pell’s guitar playing is typical hard rock – nothing special. Strange that this live album was not released on video, but then I cannot complain that they didn’t send me the video material for review. I do however believe that this would be better in the film format as there is too much talking between songs and in songs – the vocalist kind of destroys much of the feel because all you remember is talk of boring things throughout this album. That makes it appear a bit tired and slow, and I can’t help feeling like it is an album for those who are already fans of Axel Rudi Pell and that most others will find it as drab as I do.

Tired live album that doesn’t really make me feel anything other than the desire to play some other album. Being around for thirty years is impressive, too bad the celebratory album is much less impressive – but Pell promises a studio album for 2020, I think that upcoming album that I haven’t heard is more recommended than this one.

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