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H.E.A.T - Into The Great Unknown


Stefan

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Just got it and had my first listen...

Definitely the lowest of the three (studio) albums with Erik for me.  ATN and TDTW are classics and Live in London is incredible.  This?  This is...average.  Nothing stands out to me.  As far as releases this year go, it's way behind One Desire's album and Eclipse's "Monumentum".

But I'll give it more listens and maybe it'll improve over time.

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12 hours ago, Tabe said:

Just got it and had my first listen...

Definitely the lowest of the three (studio) albums with Erik for me.  ATN and TDTW are classics and Live in London is incredible.  This?  This is...average.  Nothing stands out to me.  As far as releases this year go, it's way behind One Desire's album and Eclipse's "Monumentum".

But I'll give it more listens and maybe it'll improve over time.

What he said!

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Listened 4 or 5 times now and I like this album.
I don't love it, and won't, but I may grow to love some more songs.
For me at the moment.....

Great
Best Of The Broken is my favorite
Blind Leads The Blind

Good
Bastards Of Society
Shit City
Redefined
Do You Want It

Average
Time Is On Our Side
Eye Of The Storm
Into The Great Unknown

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It's not growing on me. It's a solid album, but it's just a good album... nothing more nothing less. 

Let's do this quickly;

1     -     Bastard of Society ; it's a pretty good opener. Good hard rock, but nothing any 2-bit hard rock band couldn't pull off just as easily. Nothing special... not what you hope and expect from melodic rock giants.

2     -     Redefined ; great song - love the vocals, love how it builds. For me it's the best song here. Best melodies by a long way.

3     -     Shit City ; I don't listen to this anymore. Shit city, or shit song? I believe it's the latter. We don't need throwaway rubbish like this from a supposedly melodic (hard) rock band. Very poor tune. 

4     -     Time on our side ; not as good as 'Redefined' but good for all the same reasons 'Redefined' is. Builds greats... another really good melodic rock song. Class. 

5     -     Best of the Broken ; like the opener, it's okay but such run of the mill hard rock. What band can't do this? Why do HEAT need to be giving us average hard rock when we turn to them for something better? Doesn't do it for me. 

6     -     Eye of the Storm ; good ballad. It's nothing amazing, but it's a good HEAT song. It's the kind of stuff I wish for from HEAT and whilst it's not completely nailed, it's one of the better songs here for sure. 

7     -     Blind leads the blind ; I hate the 'mannequin' sound effects lifted from the last album - so irritating. But riff-wise, this is the only of the harder rockers that resembles anywhere near the quality we expect from HEAT when they get a bit ballsier. Killer riff and a good song... shame they didn't try more like this. Pre-chorus is still dodgy, but it's as good as this album gets in terms of hard rock. 

8     -     We Rule ; can't for the life of me think of how this song goes, lol. Not a good sign. I've rated it as 7.5 meaning it must be decent, but having heard the album many many times, cannot for the life of my think how it goes. Must be great... haha. 

9     -     Do you Want it ; more shitty 'mannequin' sounds, awful vocal passages and honestly, just a pretty annoying song. It's clinging onto keeper-hood, but everything decent about it is reversed by the annoying parts. The sound effects, the whistling, that high pitched pre-chorus... it just undoes anything that would make this song okay. 

10     -     Into the great Unknown ; nice closer. Nothing special... just an okay song. Underwhelming end to what is overall a rather underwhelming album.

Like I said, it's not bad. But this is one of the best bands of the music we listen to, and this is not an album that showcases this. I'd like them to drop the average hard rock direction and shitty irritating sounds they picked up from the 'mannequin' song on the last album and just go back to a more pure, delicious form of melodic rock. 'Address The Nation' showed they can and should be about the best band "our genre" has, and adding some balls with 'Tearing down the walls' was nice, when it was done well. But average hard rock is something any and every band can offer up these days... we don't need it from HEAT. 

 

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1 hour ago, Geoff said:

It's not growing on me. It's a solid album, but it's just a good album... nothing more nothing less. 

Let's do this quickly;

1     -     Bastard of Society ; it's a pretty good opener. Good hard rock, but nothing any 2-bit hard rock band couldn't pull off just as easily. Nothing special... not what you hope and expect from melodic rock giants.

2     -     Redefined ; great song - love the vocals, love how it builds. For me it's the best song here. Best melodies by a long way.

3     -     Shit City ; I don't listen to this anymore. Shit city, or shit song? I believe it's the latter. We don't need throwaway rubbish like this from a supposedly melodic (hard) rock band. Very poor tune. 

4     -     Time on our side ; not as good as 'Redefined' but good for all the same reasons 'Redefined' is. Builds greats... another really good melodic rock song. Class. 

5     -     Best of the Broken ; like the opener, it's okay but such run of the mill hard rock. What band can't do this? Why do HEAT need to be giving us average hard rock when we turn to them for something better? Doesn't do it for me. 

6     -     Eye of the Storm ; good ballad. It's nothing amazing, but it's a good HEAT song. It's the kind of stuff I wish for from HEAT and whilst it's not completely nailed, it's one of the better songs here for sure. 

7     -     Blind leads the blind ; I hate the 'mannequin' sound effects lifted from the last album - so irritating. But riff-wise, this is the only of the harder rockers that resembles anywhere near the quality we expect from HEAT when they get a bit ballsier. Killer riff and a good song... shame they didn't try more like this. Pre-chorus is still dodgy, but it's as good as this album gets in terms of hard rock. 

8     -     We Rule ; can't for the life of me think of how this song goes, lol. Not a good sign. I've rated it as 7.5 meaning it must be decent, but having heard the album many many times, cannot for the life of my think how it goes. Must be great... haha. 

9     -     Do you Want it ; more shitty 'mannequin' sounds, awful vocal passages and honestly, just a pretty annoying song. It's clinging onto keeper-hood, but everything decent about it is reversed by the annoying parts. The sound effects, the whistling, that high pitched pre-chorus... it just undoes anything that would make this song okay. 

10     -     Into the great Unknown ; nice closer. Nothing special... just an okay song. Underwhelming end to what is overall a rather underwhelming album.

Like I said, it's not bad. But this is one of the best bands of the music we listen to, and this is not an album that showcases this. I'd like them to drop the average hard rock direction and shitty irritating sounds they picked up from the 'mannequin' song on the last album and just go back to a more pure, delicious form of melodic rock. 'Address The Nation' showed they can and should be about the best band "our genre" has, and adding some balls with 'Tearing down the walls' was nice, when it was done well. But average hard rock is something any and every band can offer up these days... we don't need it from HEAT. 

 

My thoughts are almost opposite on every song lol.

I don't care much for Redefined, Time On Our Side.....They're okay but neither does much for me and find them pretty boring.  They're both about the same as We Rule for me....Songs that I view as okay for variety but not songs I find myself really getting into much at all.  I guess I can appreciate what they were trying to do with these songs though in terms of just creating something different.

I love Bastard, BLTB, Best Of The Broken...Great stuff and wish there were a couple more up tempo songs like these on the album.

Shit City....Agree the lyrics/subject matter is pretty bland.  I find the song to be pretty catchy though.  It's sort of the same thing with Do You Want it....Definitely not a great song lyrically but still catchy and full of hooks.

Eye of The Storm...Like that one a lot....great ballad.

I like the title track a lot too....good closer and while I usually don't care for instrumental interludes, it works well in this song for me. 

I guess I don't mind most of the modern effects scattered in the songs either....don't even really notice them.

I do agree that the last two albums were better.  However, I really don't feel like this album is fundamentally all that different in their approach. For me, there was a lot of variety in song styles within the past couple albums and they've just done the same thing again.  I think maybe this album has a little bit more variety is all which has struck a nerve with some.

For me, still a pretty decent effort even though I clearly liked ATN and TDTW better.   

 

 

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wow. comments in this thread amaze me really. they do.

This is a great album imo. massive hooks.

Bastards of Society average hard rock??? it's one of my favourite songs this year.

To each their own. but wow. 

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6 hours ago, Glen said:

wow. comments in this thread amaze me really. they do.

This is a great album imo. massive hooks.

Bastards of Society average hard rock??? it's one of my favourite songs this year.

To each their own. but wow. 

 

Yeah, to each their own, but it seems that you simply like it more than others.

Not many people slamming it.

From my ratings, after a few more listens, I've really taken to Shit City, which surprised me.
Also Into The Great Unknown I'd now rate as good :)

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I've given this one a few listens and it unfortunately hasn't grown on me.  I thought their first 4 albums were great and while this isn't a bad album, I find myself skipping several tracks and don't see it cracking my top 20 for 2017.

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It has a lot of new wave 80's pop elements to it for me.

If not that, it's mostly not hard rock.
AOR, maybe pop/rock. Nothing wrong with that, just not what people were expecting.

At least the difference between this and the last album isn't as vast as what Hardcore Superstar did.

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2 hours ago, CureTheSane said:

It has a lot of new wave 80's pop elements to it for me.

If not that, it's mostly not hard rock.
AOR, maybe pop/rock. Nothing wrong with that, just not what people were expecting.

At least the difference between this and the last album isn't as vast as what Hardcore Superstar did.

But fair chunks of the last 2 albums weren't hard rock either? what exactly were u expecting.

I'll leave you guys to debate the finer points. 

My last comment in this thread will be this -

imo HEAT have delivered an album which provides hard rock, ballads, pop/rock elements, grandiose, but mainly fun songs with plenty of variety. it's never boring to listen to which is why it appeals to me. Erik sounds flawless throughout as does the production which is superb. artwork & packaging are great as well. But most of all these songs will be fantastic live and I cannot wait to hear songs like Eye of The Storm and We Rule soar.

over and out ;)

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I dunno, I;m not gonna get into the whole genre thing again.

I'm cool with what they brought out. Different to the last couple but I have no issues with bands taking different directions.

I judge the music on how good it is, regardless of what style it is.

I like the songs,but I like the last album songs better. They grabbed me more and made me happier :)

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I have absolutely no issue with genre classifications at all, for the record. It's HEAT, which is cool. My only issue is just that the songs aren't as good as I expect from HEAT; nothing more, nothing less.

And yeah, Glen, I don't think it's everyone else that is crazy, man. I think it's just you might have a slightly over-inflated view on this album... which is cool. Like you say, to each their own. 

I also replayed 'We Rule' today and remembered it. Ah, it's okay. A bit of a Eurovision Iphone in the air type song, but it's okay. By far the weakest "ballad" on the album, though. ;)

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I might be in the minority with this opinion, but the more I listen to this album, the more I enjoy it to the point I actually think this is better than Tearing down the walls. In fact, for me it is not far behind Adress the nation.

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1 hour ago, Captain Howdy said:

I might be in the minority with this opinion, but the more I listen to this album, the more I enjoy it to the point I actually think this is better than Tearing down the walls. In fact, for me it is not far behind Adress the nation.

You might be in the minority but you are correct. 

10 great songs delivered with a style and energy only HEAT can muster. 

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17 hours ago, Glen said:

You might be in the minority but you are correct. 

10 great songs delivered with a style and energy only HEAT can muster. 

LOL

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23 hours ago, Kristian said:

Their weakest album to date, and sadly an even further step away from that fantastic eighties sound they had on the first three albums.

It's a fine album, just not compared to those first three albums.

Agree with this!

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