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Hell In The Club: Shadow Of The Monster

Melodic Hard Rock/Metal

4.5/5.0

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Scarlet Records
Words: Craig Hartranft
Added: 08.01.2016

Italy's Hell In The Club are back with a third album, Shadow Of The Monster. Once more, it's a trip back to the late Eighties for classic melodic hard rock, on the Sunset Strip sleaze side, and touched with a metal edge.

Hell In The Club

At this point, I could simply refer you to my comments about 2014's Devil On My Shoulder. Three albums in and HITC are becoming masters of their chosen genre. Every song swells with melody, harmony, and groove. They're also immensely accessible, in the arena-ready or radio accessible sense, with lots of hooks in the arrangements and refrains. The vocal arrangements are premium as well: quite melodic and harmonious. Here and there the band tosses in punk spunk and speediness as with Try Me Hate Me, Hell Sweet Hell, or Dance!.

And HITC never squanders a guitar solo. This album is loaded with some powerful and blazing guitar work. The can also throw you some curves. One is the song Appetite. It has this deceiving guitar intro that suggests a ballad, but the song erupts into this rock groove monster. Then, not unlike the interesting start, it ends with light piano outro. Another song of interest is Money Changes Everything. The timbre and tempo of the song, with vocals over piano at first, then lighter electric guitar, makes the song a hard rock ballad. Yet, it also has this very subtle blues feel, with the vocalist sounding almost like a torch singer. Bottom line: Hell In The Club's Shadow Of The Monster is another winner: mighty fine, catchy and entertaining, melodic hard rock with a metal edge. Easily recommended.

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Hell In The Club's Shadow Of The Monster is another winner: mighty fine, catchy and entertaining, melodic hard rock with a metal edge. Easily recommended.

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