There is nothing new about a hard rock band releasing an album of acoustic numbers, although generally these are live recordings and are standard versions of their own songs with some covers thrown in. To my ears the finest example of this is Tesla’s ‘Five Man Acoustical Jam’, which is just stunning, but having heard this I may have to rethink just how good that actually is. Firstly, Rain are an Italian hard rock band who have been around for more than thirty years. I know this because I looked it up, but I am still having some issues coming to terms with it as take it from me this doesn’t sound in the slightest bit Italian. In fact, I was convinced that they were Tex Mex, with some songs in Spanish and some in English, but they seem so much at home in the languages and feel that they had to be either Mexican or American, but Italian? Okay, so we all know that the finest Westerns of all time are the spaghetti versions, but music? Really?
What we have here is a band playing mostly acoustically (electric bass), who are bringing together Alabama 3, Johnny Cash, Tina Turner and the B 52’s into an amalgam of all that is good about Tex Mex. Powerful rhythms, great guitars, and vocals that never sound European manage to convey incredible depth and emotion to what they are doing. There are a few covers on here, with “Ride Like The Wind” being way better than the original (always liked the song but not the performance by Christopher Cross) and “Times Like These” being stripped back and very different indeed to the original by Foo Fighters.
There are some reviews of this album on some metal sites where it has really been critically destroyed, but that is due to an issue with small minded reviewers where they feel that if it isn’t heavy then it is no good. But, what we have here is actually one of the most intriguing albums I have ever heard from this label, certainly it is the most unexpected.
