Based around the vocals of Miljenko Matijevic, Steelheart released their debut album in 1990, which quickly reached platinum status. The follow-up was released in 1992, but while touring in support of the album, one night an improperly secured lighting truss hit Matijevic on the back of the head, breaking his nose, cheekbone, jaw, and twisting his spine. That was the end of the band, although Matijevic revitalized the name four years later, coming back with a third album which featured the song “We All Die Young” which was later included as a re-recorded version in the movie “Rock Star”, which saw Matijevic providing the singing voice for Mark Wahlberg's character. Now he’s back, with just one survivor from the 1996 line-up (guitarist Kenny Kanowski), but the feeling both musically and from their website is that in many ways this is a project as opposed to a band.
That he is a great singer, with power and range, is never in doubt. But, what about the songs themselves? They are vehicles, nothing more or less, for Matijevic to show his skills whether it is singing sweetly, bringing in a falsetto, rough housing his way through, showing a rough blues side, or hitting high pitched screams. I can imagine many of these songs doing incredibly well at festivals or in arena shows, where he can get the audience very much on his side, but as to listening to them at home…. The label states that this is a band for fans of Winger, Slaughter, White Lion, Danger Danger and Trixter, and while the last is unknown to me I can see where they are coming from with comparisons to the others as I tend not to listen to them unless I have to either. He is an awesome vocalist, but his own band isn’t the right place to really showcase what he has to offer.
