Warning .... Album of the year ahead.

Gotthard - the Swiss hard rock band - is back with Lip Service, their best album since a loooooong time. A new label (leaving BMG for Nuclear Blast), a new management, one line-up change (a new guitarist), a heavier music compare to Homerun and Human Zoo ... this might be Gotthard's magic potion for a great album. If you are usually digging for Bon Jovi (a decade ago of course), Def Leppard (twenty years ago of course haha), Bonfire, Kiss (Animalize, Asylum or Crazy Night album) and I am obliged to mention Krokus, well my friends, this Lip Service is what your are looking for in 2005 even though the music delivered inside Lip Service will send you back to the 80's. Yeah that's right, when we were playing air guitar in front of the mirror with our wig on.

Of course when I say Gotthard is back to a heavier music, I am not talking of thrash, speed or doom stuff. I am referring to melodic hard rock style with rhythmic guitars - being this time !!! - mixed in front of the sound like it was the case with their first albums. The song writing remains at the high standard set over previous releases but it has become a trademark for the Swiss band. Even if the fans urgently wanted to hear Gotthard going back to the roots, the song writing on Homerun or Human Zoo was spotless. What was missing so ? The hard rock spirit apparently :)

The three openers - All We Are, Dream On and Lift U Up - are top-quality hard rock songs. The tempo of the album drags you back into the glory days of the late eighties when Def Leppard was killing the place with the Hysteria album. Vocalist Steve Lee is once again a giant amongst the mammoth, sounding very much like Rod Steward meets David Coverdale as far as I am concerned. When Steve's magical voice enters in contact with Gotthard's superb song writing, something sensual happens inside the listener. While All We Are is a hot anthem to kick off the album, Lift U Up has all the ingredients of a Bon Jovi's classic pop/rock anthem, the kind of song you sing alone below the shower. Anew the lyrics are focused on life purpose, delivering a very positive message ... boosting your soul for the coming day.

Certainly all Gotthard albums contain ballads like Scorpions used to deliver ... back in the 80's. Everything I Want and I've seen An Angel Cry are typical love stories set to be sung to an audience of lighter holding fans (see you on tour smokers). Fortunately the tempo of Lip Service isn't destroyed between mid-tempo and ballads as Cupid Arrow, I Wonder (Def Leppard resurrects), I'm Alive, Stay For The Night, Anytime Anywhere (another anthem that will kick our ass live) and Said and Done get things hard rock cranked again. The only mistake that I can spot on Lip Service is the choice of the last track - another ballad - but that's a question of taste obviously.

The bottom line ? If you are a true fan of melodic hard rock and you still haven't bought Lip Service ... well ... hang yourself !!!