Music

Average customer rating:

The recipe's changed, but still works at times...

Recipe for Power
Exxplorer
Manufacturer: Plast
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Rock | Styles | Music

General | Hard Rock & Metal | Styles | Music
ASIN: B000006YL7
Release Date: 1995-02-22

Customer Reviews:

The recipe's changed, but still works at times..........2005-12-22

Exxplorer's 1994 follow-up to 1985's "Symphonies of Steel," widely regarded as a minor US metal classic, "A Recipe For Power" retains all of the members from the debut.

While there are enough unifying factors throughout the album to keep it from being an uneven mishmash of styles, there are definitely songs of varying type and quality on the album. "Rockin' Bound" and "Rock the Nation" show the band venturing farther into commercial/hard rock song styles than they ever had before, although calling these songs non-metal might be going too far. "Life's Seduction" and "Smelling the Roses" are ballads, but they can't beat "World War III" from the debut album, which had better lyrical themes and was more tasteful.

Fear not, there's real metal to be found, though. "Beg, Borrow, and Steel," "Ride the Storm," and particulary "Bible Black" are solid power/heavy metal tracks. Considering the time period, they're not overly modern or updated in sound, but some of the classic metal dynamics of the debut have been lost. Singer Lennie Rizzo wasn't a John Cyriis by any means, but he did pull some higher notes on the debut; the vocals here are mostly midrange, but it doesn't hurt the music. As for the instrumentation, some parts are right on the cusp of being classic-style metal, but the album never really hits it--it's hard to tell whether it's from updated equipment and production, or whether the band couldn't help being influenced by their old sound. Nevertheless, there's a definite loss of that indescribable '80s magic.

Most surprising is the cover of "One," the Harry Nilsson song popularized by Three Dog Night (I liked the original as a kid so it's the most interesting point of the album for me, though I'm obviously biased). It's a very tastefully done metal translation, although admittedly some of the old high vocals would have helped here; the original high note at the end of the original is replaced here with a weak, processed falsetto backing vocal track way in the background.

Weighing all the factors, this is really only an average album. It shows both the good and bad sides of the passage of time--the band was clearly capable of still writing good metal, but sadly, chose not to do an entire album of it.

This will always be overshadowed by "Symphonies of Steel," but there are highs here with the lows (if you want a totally abortive release free of heavy and/or metal, try their third album, "Coldblackugly," which had some lineup changes).

Music:

Music