Back in 1979 NWOBHM was in full swing in the UK, the year I became 16, so I was very much the target market and I was doing whatever I could to discover the music and soon had quite a collection of singles and albums from the likes of Samson, Raven, Iron Maiden, Saxon, Def Leppard, Angelwitch, Witchfynde, Mythra, Bitches Sin, Steel, Tygers of Pan Tang, Venom and many more. I of course grabbed the ‘Metal For Muthas’ albums, but while I was aware of Praying Mantis, especially their debut album ‘Time Tells No Lies’ from 1981, somehow, I never got into them and never saw them live either.
The band were formed by Tino (bass) and Chris Troy (guitar) all the way back in 1973, changing to the current name in 1974, which means this is their 50th anniversary and now they are back with their 13th studio album, having had the same line-up since 2013 with Tino and Chris now joined by vocalist Jaycee Cuijpers, drummer Hans in’t Zandt, and guitarist Andy Burgess. Many of those NWOBHM bands are no longer with us, while others are still there ploughing a similar style we have known through all the years, while others changed quite dramatically, and that is what we have here. They may have had many luminaries pass through their ranks over the years (including Burr, Di’anno and Stratton!), but these days their style is far removed from what one might expect. While there are still twin guitars, their music is now all about highly commercialised and produced melodic rock with some anthem here and there. Jaycee has a rich vocal style with hints of Glenn Hughes, and one cannot tell he is Dutch as there is no accent whatsoever.
Apparently, the band recorded a version of the Russ Ballard song “I Surrender” back at the time of the debut album but were beaten to the punch by Rainbow who of course had a worldwide hit with it, but here they have revisited it and produced something which sounds very much like Ritchie’s version. Having not heard Ballard’s original I cannot comment how close this is to that, but it would have been a better idea to do something quite different as this does not really add anything except prove they are a great covers band. In fact, while this is a good album, it is missing that overall spark which makes it essential. Polished American-style hard rock, well performed, but somehow never quite hitting the heights they want it to.
Rating: 7/10
Links:
https://www.prayingmantis.rocks/
https://www.frontiers.it/
