City Of Sound

A Rough Guide To Gradings

This is how the new grading system works.

A song is awarded points on a scale of 0 to 3, where 0 is considered to be crap, 1 average, 2 good and 3 classic. We add up the total and then divide it by the total points available - for ten songs that will be 30 (3x10), 11 songs 33, and so on. This figure is then multiplied by 100 to achieve the magical % rating.

Of course it is not an exact science and the rating is still very much a matter of opinion. Anything between 60-70% has to be considered a strong effort while you won't come across much above that very often.

100 - 91 Classic 50 - 41 Patchy
90 - 81 Essential 40 - 31 Below Average
80 - 71 Brilliant 30 - 21 Bad
70 - 61 Very Good 20 - 11 Very Bad
60 - 51 Good 10 - 00 Delete

May '98

One

SPEED
ONE
BLUESTONE BMS 1015
66%

With their debut album Norwegian trio Speed have made a very impressive start to their career. Since hearing a tape and later receiving a CDR of this record it's been one of my favourite hard rock albums of recent months. Take a base of TNT style AOR and add the strong vocal style of singer Strone then turn up the power to Jack In The Box level and you have a winning formula. Speed manage to be both melodic and powerful and inject their songs with plenty of energy and passion (something rare in AOR circles these days). Musicianship is top notch, with guitarist Ken Ingwersen the undoubted star of the show his Ronni Le Tekro chops are sure to please fans of TNT and Harem Scarem. The songs are of consistently high quality and with good production (from Ingwersen) this makes for an album which is well worth getting.

HUMAN
OUT OF THE DUST
ORGANIC/PAMPLIN ORCD 9802
65%

Human is an excellent new Christian band, with a sound that is very reminiscent of Dan Reed's post Network band Adrenaline Sky. It's dark and contemporary and at times a little grungy, but the melodies are big and the hooks bite deep. Randy Kinnet's vocals are real close to Reed and serve to emphasise the comparisons, at times he also reminded me of James LeBrie's middle register. Maybe there is a little of Kings X and The Toll in there as well, the guys are not afraid to explore their lighter sides, with acoustic guitars gaining prominence on some tracks. Whiteheart mainman Billy Smiley provides a very good production job, which brings out all the little nuances of light and shade, which could well have suffered with a less sympathetic mix. Human is undoubtedly the finest new Christian band to emerge in many a year.


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Peter Sims
Last update 11th May 1998
Created 11th May 1998 © Peter Sims