Jesse Damon
Damon's Rage

Jesse shows his rage with this new release that is his sixth solo album. He is a guy who is friends with Gene Simmons of Kiss and has co-written some songs with him and he started his career with the band Silent Rage who had some successes in the late eighties/early nineties. So it is a man with some vast experience behind the name Jesse Damon and for this sixth album he is once again collaborating with Paul Sabu, and these two guys did everything on this album that the press sheet claims is both original and has some unforgettable choruses.

I don’t know about original as it is melodic rock of the softer poppier kind, AOR might also be a description that can fit. The choruses are pretty catchy in general, there are some ballads and it is quite melodic. I have no complaints when it comes to the production, other than it isn’t as brilliant as the best productions I have heard and the exact same thing can be said about the vocals from Jesse. The playing time is a bit on the long side with almost an hour split over a dozen tracks, I think that is a tad on the long side as the album isn’t varied enough or dynamic enough to keep me entertained for that amount of time.

It is a pretty good album all things considered, the songs work and there are no stinkers in the track list. There are some pretty strong ones though, like Flying Dutchman and opening track Play to Wine – but no track is really memorable. But it is a nice album to listen to and I doubt that anyone could really dislike it, the question is if anyone can adore it. I am not so sure about the latter, but I also know that you cannot really go wrong with an album like this one.

Damon’s Rage is a very solid album, too good to be considered bad, perhaps even somewhat above the average of the genre standing somewhat above the ever-increasing slew of dull and pointless melodic rock release. Unfortunately, it is also an album that is too unoriginal and too poor to be considered great, it feels like he is just borrowing stuff from others and putting it into songs that feels like homages if you are kind or rip-offs if you are less than kind. The thing is that if you are nostalgic and enjoy poppy melodic rock there is a decent chance that you will find this one appealing, so if you fit that description you should check this one out. I think he should have shown more rage.

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