” Child Within The Man” Tracklisting
- Everybody Bleeds
- Freedom (featuring John 5)
- (Hold On) To The Dream
- What Do I Got To Lose
- Hard Darkness
- Future Of Youth (featuring Orianthi)
- Vendetta
- F. U (featuring Steve Stevens)
- Crucify Me
- About To Break
- To Live Again
Review by Alistair Wiseman
With a tagline of “An album more than 10 years in the making…” expectations are already elevated for Sebastian Bach’s new offering which is about to land on May 10th, so when it dropped into my “To do” email list I knew this was going to be interesting! The former Skid Row singer has been floating around the music scene since his teenage years, and now aged 56 he’s showing no signs of hanging up the microphone. Let’s see if that’s a good thing.
“Child within the Man” sports 11 songs, which entertainingly upon my first google search showed up as being purveyed on a double vinyl album at three songs a side for three of the four sides and two for the final side, which left me wondering if this was going to be something of a throwback to the days where bands like Deep Purple were delivering albums with songs like ‘Wring that Neck’ taking up a full side and running in at 32 minutes, but fortunately (or not depending on your personal proclivities) this was not the case.
In truth, I wasn’t sure what to expect. As an old school rock fan I obviously know of Skid Row, but all this was fields the last time he was releasing music with them, and frankly since then I’ve heard very little from him. First impressions however were very very interesting. What I certainly wasn’t expecting was to hear in the first three songs sounds and feelings comparable to both Stone Sour and Soundgarden. ‘Everybody Bleeds,’ track one, has a massive “Socio” feel to it, and track three (Hold On) To The Dream opens with a line that could be straight out of ‘Black Hole Sun,’ however these are soon overtaken and subverted by Bach’s own vocal style which sounds suitably gravelly, and his accompanying musicians who seem to be more than capable of imposing their own parts in the compositions onto the overall sound. Not surprising when you consider there’s people like Orianthi guesting, along with long serving Devin Bronson on guitars, Jeremy Colson returns on drums, and Todd Kerns on bass, a man so well travelled Bill Bryson might well have asked him for tips on content for his books, but you’ll have possibly most likely last have seen him somewhere behind Slash. Speaking of which, there’s also two tracks co-written with Myles Kennedy so if you’re looking for quality input, it’s here in spades.
As mentioned, from the first track you can tell Bach has moved well into the 21st century and in keeping with that ‘Everybody Bleeds’ has been around on Spotify for a while along with ‘(Hold on) To The Dream’ and both have notched up a fair few plays, but of the three it’s the grammatically terribly titled ‘What do I got to Lose’ (sorry, it’s the British in me) which has blasted well over ¼ million streams, and also notched up 1.2 million YouTube watches. Not bad! Not bad at all, and there’s a reason for it: Bach has still got a voice that holds your attention. Melodic but shouty enough to convey the angst this kind of music requires to be traditional rock/metal while being distinctive enough for you to go “I know that voice.” It’s his first single in 10 years and track four on the album, and it’s definitely a stand out. So too is track six, ‘Future of Youth,’ which is the track featuring Orianthi. It’s all about the guitar work here, and it’s noticeably different from what’s come before, and curiously the same can be said for track eight ‘F. U’ which again is featuring a guest guitarist, this time the Grammy award winning Steve Stevens, who’s worked with every artist under the sun, including Billy Idol, Vince Neil, The Thompson Twins and…. wait for it… David Hasselhoff. Having also worked with Bach before he syncs with Bach et al., with consummate ease and elevates the track to a point where you have to sit up and take notice.
That’s not to say the rest of the tracks are not good. Musically sound is something I’d say about the whole album. Tracks ‘Vendetta’ and ‘Hard Darkness’ all have something about them. They’re certainly not filler, and in fact they’re probably the bread and butter of the album, great accompaniments to the meat. The ambiance is complete with a sense that the musicians performing here have honed their craft for years and possess a profound understanding of it. ‘About to Break,’ the penultimate track certainly requires attention, punchy but the vocal is different. It sounds almost feminine, and the whole track is tonally less gritty, with a very decent solo sounding fresh, almost sprightly in fact. I suspect it’s in order to lead up to ‘To Live Again’ which sounds exactly like a final track should do. It’s like a musical goodbye. Melodic, clean but sorrowful vocals which brought to mind Bach’s Riff Raff stint in Rocky Horror, (more specifically “Over at the Frankenstein’s place”), bombastic crescendos, and a feel of something that might surface on one of those compilation soft rock albums featuring REO Speedwagon and Chicago! It’s actually rather lovely and a great way to finish off an album.
Not knowing what was coming here was something of a gift. I’ve walked away from listening probably 3-4 times to this album thinking about what to say when writing a review, and that’s unusual for me. It’ll certainly satisfy people who’ve been a fan of Bach’s vocal for years, but for those coming to his music from having seen him crop up (and do well on) The Masked Singer, there’s enough diversity whilst also maintaining his identity to keep a new listener captivated. Finishing with the ballad in my opinion is a masterstroke. It creates closure and leaves the listener with a feelgood impression, which is obviously something you want from your audience.
“Always leave them wanting more.” they say. Hopefully it’ll be a lot less than 10 years until said “more” comes along this time.
Order “Child Within The Man” Information on Tour Dates and more HERE.
