With the just released and featured here new album from HIGH SPIRITS, some of you asked for the band’s first album “Another Night“, a not so easy to find CD and another wonderful slice of classic, traditional metal with a timeless sound.
Simply put, this album causes flashbacks to a younger age, circa 1981 / 1982 when you listened NWOBHM a lot. But also German metal, Scandinavian, and more.
Every song on ”Another Night” conveys an empowering nostalgia in both the conversational lyrics and the hard rocking metal vibe. You’ll hear echoes of Riot, Saxon, Krokus, Scorpions, UFO and more than enough classic hard rock and metal bands to fill an entire paragraph. You already know where it’s going and how it ends, but it feels new because it hits you on such an emotional level.
”Another Night” begins working its magic from the opening strains of the first track “Another night in the city”. The feeling you get is exactly what the lyrics describe. It’s quiet, but there’s an electricity building like the anticipation to leave the comfort of your place and take on whatever excitement or danger awaits beyond the door. Then the chorus hits and you know there’s no hiding in the dark tonight. Chris Black’s enthusiasm is as infectious as those guitar hooks and you’ll want to sing along with every word. Woo! It’s another night to be alive and to make more history. That quick lead at 1:55 is oh so sweet and is another reason I cannot get enough of this song. Within days of first hearing this, it became a song I have to hear before going out. This is on my playlist for life.
“Do You Remember” feels like a re-imagining of “Diamonds and Rust.” The lyrics are almost clairvoyant in their poignancy and you’ll feel like you’re being catapulted back to every pivotal moment in that special relationship as you relive first noticing her, the deepening of rapport, the first night where she was yours, the sunrise together, and eventually the sad drifting apart because of circumstances.
However, Chris Black’s impassioned vocals reassure you that if you’re lucky enough to have even one memory like that and if that memory is all you keep with you until the end of your time, then that’s a lot better than nothing because you sir have been a lucky man.
Even if the music of “Full Power” isn’t as metallic as you would expect from a current metal anthem, the lyrics are as obvious as a fist to the face. It’s about fighting ’til death though not in such extreme language. It’s about never losing that (high) spirit that makes you do everything you aspire to do. It’s knowing that everything Fates Warning said at the end of “The Ivory Gate of Dreams” is true! I
Just like “Drifter” ends Killers on a positive note, “Going Up” is where all past mistakes are forgiven as you absorb their lessons to fully appreciate every part of your life so far. A problem you will encounter when listening to this album is that your reaction to the silence that follows “Going Up” will be something like “No! That’s the whole album?!?!!” Do not panic. I have found that pressing play will quickly remedy this issue. Please follow my example.
On ”Another Night”, High Spirits channel a feeling that must be experienced. The lyrics feel genuine and are devoid of the tongue-in-cheek irony that plagues other retro metal bands. You’ll be disarmed by the uplifting nature of the music and you’ll feel the story either as an adult taking stock of his life to date or as a teen listening to the words of an older brother explaining what’s to come.
High Spirits… this is undiluted Traditional Heavy Metal. And it comes in the form of a by gone era when Metal meant something more than chest-beating tuff guys horseshit. Something more than giving the devil his duel. Something more than another angry doe-eyed group of neurotic youth.
It comes from when Metal had a raging innocence and youth to it. A time when it didn’t take itself seriously, and when it gave you that special feeling. Whatever that feeling may be. That special spark igniting the gunpowder to the keg of imagination.
Again, whatever that feeling was, you know it. You knew it then and it kinda comes and goes in your older (hopefully more mature) years. That yearning to make you feel like that kid again.
Highly Recommended
01 – Another night in the city
02 – Do you remember
03 – Full power
04 – Demons at the door
05 – I’ll be back
06 – You make love imposible
07 – Where did I go wrong
08 – Night’s in black
09 – Going up
Chris “Professor” Black – everything
HIGH SPIRITS – Another Night [CD version w/ Scans] (2011)
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