Casablanca - Riding A Black Swan (2013)

1 	The Giant Dreamless Sleep 	4:01
2 	Hail The Liberation 	3:42
3 	Dead End Street Revisited 	3:21
4 	It's Alright 	4:10
5 	Barriers 	4:06
6 	Riding A Black Swan 	3:29
7 	Some Misty Morning 	3:25
8 	Heartbreak City 	2:29
9 	No Devil In Me 	3:37
10 	Just For The Nite 	4:16

Bass – Mats Rubarth
Drums – Josephine Forsman
Guitar – Erik Stenemo, Ryan Roxie
Vocals – Anders Ljung

A new type or Rock is here to stay, or is it new after all? Spawning in Sweden, Stockholm area, one of the reinvented Glam Rock / Metal’s strongholds of late, this cranky Rock fever is no less tasty than any of the Glam ventures going on. Walking the plank, quite a thin floorboard actually, there is an impressive journey through the outskirts of Glam Metal in a bowl of classic youthful street Rock driven by late 70s and early 80s attributes. Modern or vintage, this is a piece of honesty and a cause for admiration. There you have it, the regarded supergroup, CASABLANCA, featuring one of ALICE COOPER’s stained guitar flames, Ryan Roxie. Following their successful debut, “Apocalyptic Youth”, the rockin’ endeavor continues on a fiercer note with sharper fangs on the wings of a blackened swan with the sophomore “Riding A Black Swan”, via Gain Entertainment / Sony Music. Rock is on a roll, and there is no place to hide, darkness has arrived, and it is ready to engulf you with its favored color.

I have been banging my head in order to find some comparisons for you guys in order to let you capture a least a bit of the essence of CASABLANCA but I only came up with fragments. Along with features of KISS, ALICE COOPER, MOTLEY CRUE, H.E.A.T., HANOI ROCKS and THE POODLES, there is the crunchiness of the Hard Rock buzz of vintage times pervaded with elements of nowadays Indie Rock, yeah the stuff you see on MTV (Can’t blame them as this is also called music). Gladly, CASABLANCA seemed to be generally enthused by the classics rather than newer perspectives, it is quite apparent by their chosen crispy sound, which was well engineered and mixed, and of course their material seems to be playing the older game. The songwriting appears rather simple, courses oriented songs, catchy and easy, modest rhythm section that showcases a tight backbone, riffs take it down to the Blues at times, but mostly freewheeling frenzy of tasty straight up Rock in a top notch form, grazing at will with a few melodic leaks and swaggering soloing. It might appear to be just like any Rock album, yet I beg to differ. “Riding A Black Swan” also gives the impression that is placing its fate on the raspy soaring vocals of Anders Ljung, sounding like a true veteran Glam frontman with just enough boyish and sexiness in his tones of voice with a slight Joe Elliot flavor. If it did, it was the right call, as without Ljung’s inspiring performance, it would have a little bleak and less spirited.

With a free spirited youthful madness, the modern day blackened flower kids, CASABLANCA slaps with “Hail The Liberation” and “Dead End Street Revisited”, classy ripping rockers, filled with spunk, true grit and blazes of the past, surging with nifty riffing and world class choruses staining with a dappled atmosphere. “Barriers” and “Just For The Nite” are probably two of the coolest Hard Rock extensions of this number, persevering rockin’ tunes harbouring some nice melodies and ample harmonies while “No Devil In Me” takes on the late 70s by storm with a hymn Rock attack sharing a crispy taste, conjuring both modern and past forms. As you can probably notice, there isn’t that much to comment about the actual tracks as largely they reveal the same qualities and ingredients for the forging of catchy Rock. In overall, “Riding A Black Swan” hit the right spots as a Rock classic to be should, slick performance of an incredible group blending both vintage and new musical Rock directions closer to perfection. No doubt that “Riding A Black Swan” will immerse the listener with the hunger to return to it again and again. ---Lior "Steinmetal" Stein, metal-temple.com

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