‘II’ is H.E.A.T’s intended return to their roots after the rather experimental ‘Into the Great Unknown’ from 2017.
Written by: DaveT
ARTIST: H.E.A.T
ALBUM: II
LABEL: Ear Music
SERIAL: 0214598EMU
YEAR: 2020
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Sweden
LINEUP: Erik Gronwall – vocals * Dave Dalone – guitar * Jona Tee – keyboards * Jimmy Jay – bass * Don Crash – drums
TRACK LISTING: 01 Rock Your Body * 02 Dangerous Ground * 03 Come Clean * 04 Victory * 05 We Are Gods * 06 Adrenaline * 07 One By One * 08 Nothing To Say * 09 Heaven Must Have Won An Angel * 10 Under The Gun * 11 Rise
RATING: 80/100
Background
‘II’ is H.E.A.T’s intended return to their roots after the rather experimental ‘Into the Great Unknown’ from 2017. According to the press release, this is how a debut album would currently sound, hence the title. The lineup remains the same from its predecessor, only this time guitarist Dave Dalone abandoned his >Sky Davis moniker. For the first time, the in-house team of Tee and Dalone has taken over production duties, with longtime producer Tobias Lindell only in charge of the mixing.
The Songs
‘Rock Your Body’ is the bombastic start in full Def Leppard mode with a clever guitar riff that mirrors the massive earworm chorus, one that becomes a bit repetitive during the 4-minute song, while ‘Dangerous Ground’ rocks out at 100 mph with a certain Motley Crue flavor. After this stinging one-two, let’s go over the songs grouping them by style, shall we?
For the AOR fan, we’ve got the fantastic ‘Come Clean’ with its addictive chorus and keys. ‘Adrenaline’s verses sound like inspired by the classic ‘Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)’ while the chorus and sweet >’whoa oh oh ‘ gang backing vocals are H.E.A.T’s trademark. ‘One By One’ is the quality Melodic Rock piece of the album.
The heavier side is represented by ‘Victory’ and ‘We Are Gods’. The former is proud Euro-Metal and the lyrics seem to be tailor-made to these pandemic times while the latter starts bluesy but quickly takes a U-turn into a dark, heavy tune with a pounding refrain that would make Manowar proud.
‘Nothing To Say’ is the power ballad of the album. Slightly evocative of Europe in style, Jona Tee does an exceptional job with his keyboard arsenal. However, I’m not that sold on the lyrics and vocal melody. ‘Heaven Must Have Won An Angel’ is traditional Scandi-rock while ‘Under The Gun’ is perhaps the most standard tune, borrowing the soul of the opening song riff and a few Hard Rock cliches like the stadium chorus.
Luckily, ‘II’ ends on a high note with the energizing ‘Rise’ in which the verses build up to a superb chorus of deafening proportions, to an extent that the current H.E.A.T tour was called ‘Sign In The Northern Sky’ after the song’s lyrics.
Now, I have a few caveats on the album’s memorability. It took me a good three months to get around to reviewing it, mainly ’cause I struggled to listen to it in one sit. Let me expand on the idea. To these ears, all instruments (vocals included) are fighting to take center stage in the mix most of the time. A good deal of the vocal efforts, guitar solos and drumming seem like more oriented to make an impact in terms of strength and speed than melodically.
On the one hand, that causes nuances to be lost, solos to be buried and a certain ear fatigue while, on the other hand, it makes the energy levels to appear as forced/contrived to the detriment of the actual power of the music.
In Summary
This is a good album in which H.E.A.T returns to the guitar-heavy vibe of their first releases while undoubtedly retaining their melodic edge. Is it a masterpiece? Not to the level it’s been praised in most of the media. It’s only my opinion, based on what’s stated in the review.
Video
Dangerous Ground
Come Clean
One By One
Rise
[Gdazegod] Yep, this is a goodie. Full of anthems and close to their 2008 debut. Good return to form.
[PatrickHemming] Excellent album & Band. Always worth my time.
[George The Jack] To me that’s the album of the year as no one creates, plays and produces hard rock music with such authority in 2020 without sounding forced,flat, pretentious or simply… bad. Plain as that. Point me to a band or artist that celebrates the genre’s glory days better and I will take back the statement.
The Night Flight Orchestra is another Swedish band who seem to have jumped out of a time machine but their approach is quite different to H.E.A.T, not hard rock akin to 80’s Bon Jovi, Whitesnake or Europe.
The songwriting is top notch as David Axelsson (aka Dave Dalone) shows a welcome return to the songwriting helm having written most of the material as he ‘d also done back in 2008 for their successful debut. On another note production sounds pretty much ideal to my ears balancing between rawness and polishment, musicality and studio refinement (not over-produced or screamingly loud mixed like most low-budget releases of today).
I eagerly await Lionville and the Gathering of Kings releases (and perhaps the Girish & the Chronicles too) but I have a feeling none of those is going to top that performance.
[Chris] I’m still a little bit astonished how much controversy this album caused in many reviews. If there was one album in the last twenty years where I was sure that all melodicrockers could agree on, then it would have been this one. To me, melodic hardrock simply doesn’t get any better than this. Everything here is top quality, especially the songs are all killer, no filler.
To a certain extent I can understand, what dtabachn is trying to point out in his review. This is not an album of subtleties, but it was oviously not intended to be. This is not Toto, trying to put as many styles into one album as they could, no, this is in-your-face, pedal-to-the-metal melodic hardrock of the highest possible order.
If this is not a 10/10-album, then I don’t know what is.
[Gdazegod] Erik Gronvall has now left the band, to be (re) replaced by original singer Kenny Leckremo. No doubt the keyboard warriors elsewhere will be talking about this as if its the biggest story of the year (which it isn’t). But that’s rock n roll for ya!