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Former Royal Hunt singer DC Cooper is presenting a solo album. Musically he offers melodic metal without the bombastic touch the Danish have. For the recordings he could gather 3/5 of Pink Cream 69 - Koffl, Dennis and Kosta - as well as Vanden Plas keyboarder Günter Werno and Norwegian guitarist Tore O&slash;stby.
Opening up with Dream it shows the musical dreams of DC Cooper. The first track is a catchy melodic metal tune with heavy guitar riffing. Next Mr. Cooper covers Uriah Heep's Easy Living which is much heavier then the original, but beside that not far from Uriah Heep's version. Well adopted. A heavy rocker is The Angel Comes which is a bit darker then the first track. The guitar riffing let me think of Accept... Drummer Kosta Zafiriou and bassist Dennis Ward deliver the perfect playground for keyboard and guitars. A symphonic touch this one gets from Günter Werno's keyboards which fits to the song and DC's vocals. Bells and foot falls end this one. The sound of a slamming door leads into the next song - Until The End. A balladesque tune which is enchanting. I can imagine this one would be even better in an acoustic version... Great song! Very intersting is Take Me In, coz here Mr. Cooper and his mates work with different speeds, with unusual sounds and combine slow and up-tempo parts. Surprising moments keep it interesting for the listener, even after several spins.
An up-tempo tune is Without Yourself and so with track no. 5 they have already presented the whole range of Cooper's sound, even if I think he's better with the slower ones. Give a try to Three Generations, Dream and Freedom. Only Whisper didn't fit for my opinion into the album, but mainly coz DC here sings partly high notes and sounds a bit like Halford. Just a matter of taste, but I prefer his usual singing voice.
I always liked Royal Hunt, but I think that DC Cooper is better on his own. The songs on his solo album fit much better to the voice of the American. Perhaps because the beauty of his voice isn't overlaid by the bombastic sound of Royal Hunt. Hard rock fans should check out this one, but melodic metal fans can buy it and won't regret it!
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