Lady Of The Lake

Lord Grey was a project that began in the early 90's with current Savannah vocalist, Earle Lord, and bassist Doug Grey (who is no longer with the band). The band also features former Savannah bassist Marc Kolodziej. Lord Grey existed for a while in the 90's and recorded the material for this album during that time. It was actually recorded before Savannah's debut album and only now is it finally seeing the light of day.

The 80's melodic hard rock/metal sound obviously has a huge influence on these guys. Not only does it have a classic 80's sound, the production gives the album an 80's feel and it's like a long lost album that has finally surfaced (in a way it is). The music is very much like that of Savannah but it also takes on an 80's fist-pumping anthemic metal style especially with the first track, Feel The Fire. It sounds like a classic Dokken/Motley Crue/Winger style and really has a "hair metal" sound to it. Classic 80's metal anthem style choruses are aplenty on this album! Lady Of The Lake, the title track has a more epic feel with quiet guitar and voice parts eventually getting heavier with a Dokken/Journey type of chorus. There's a couple of power ballads that are not bad namely, Give My Life For You that has a classic 70's power ballad style with a quiet intro which slowly builds to a heavy climax (almost like Styx's Suite Madame Blue) and the track Right Or Wrong uses the Accept Balls To The Wall style of riffing and song structure to attempt to recapture that aspect of the 80's sound.

Earle Lord has a great voice and the lead guitar playing on this album is fantastic. Overall the album has a good vibe but what seems to be lacking are really great songs and a sense of originality. With most of the members busy with other projects (i.e. Savannah), I'm not sure if there are any plans to continue or if this release is a chance to finally release some material that has been gathered over much of the 90's. Either way, fans of 80's style melodic hard rock (especially Dokken) will probably find something to like about this album. There are a few good songs but everything on this album sounds so familiar and so predictable and has been done to death before by many other bands. There's lots of variety in the songs here and there's nothing really wrong with this album, it's just that there's a lack of any really killer songs that would've made this album so much better.