Rez

Item: Innocent Blood
Author: DMZ

Innocent Blood

(1989)

Reviewed by DMZ

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Label Grrr RecordsAdonai Metal Rock #4May 1991

blues rock classic rock hard rock

Translated from the original French

(Them again!!) (And guess who is doing the review...?)

It starts very strongly for lovers of "metal". After 59 seconds of an acoustic intro sung by Glenn, it takes off like a shot on a rhythm to bang your head against something, properly primate!! With a big sound that has nothing to envy BARREN CROSS. You feel straight away a fairly advanced piece of work on the sound, big progress on that side for REZ. The next track grabs you like mad, a bass-and-drums intro that reminds me of something by MIDNIGHT OIL (um... I know, it is not metal...) It is Madame (the singer) who tries to make it heard that the house is burning in the middle of the very "riff-hard" saturated guitars. She ends up letting out her cry of alarm alone. Monsieur takes back the microphone for a nicely syncopated "old hard": "80,000 feet under the ground, down and out", "the swollen wallet / The empty heart / The living dead man pushes his trolley / What price for human dignity / Betrayed by poverty". Here, cash seems to mean poverty, that is strong!!! The next track is on a blues tempo (which one often feels on this album). The bass hammers a monotonous rhythm. She sings low: "Demonic or raving mad?" A caustic critique of a society that enriches itself on the backs of the poor. "It is not a crime / I have a blast with everything I am cooking up / I never have enough / I even kill the kids before they are born / Their feet are already formed / But do not buy them any shoes / They will never be worn". No sermons, no moralising, just a point of view on reality that holds up (in my opinion!!). The blues (a real one: more than 7 minutes!!) that follows arrives at just the right moment. "I will go and run where the roses grow." By definition, the blues is "the fed-up feeling"; that one does not escape the rule, but it ends full of hope, thoroughly visionary, it is not going to last... The piece that follows... ARGGLL!!!! What on earth is that doing there?!? A sort of new-wave / pop, a rubbish chorus, a rhythm you would call "made in a box". Mercy!! Leave that to INDOCHINE!!! (Note in passing the objectivity of your reviewer) (yours truly). Phew!!

The next go, we fall back into a blues, "speed" tempo (you know what I mean!!). It is the pearl of the album: an intro on the "DOBRO" (you know, the iron guitar like DIRE STRAITS?) (Now then!! What am I going to get for that...!) played in slide with a "bottle nec" (the little iron tube...). First verse next, the bass comes in, round, it follows the melody. Then the drums come tumbling in, the bass changes its sound, and hammers out a beat... TO RRI DE...!!! With the DOBRO still soloing. This mixture, a treat!!! Replaced afterwards by the distortion, three verses then the first taken up again acoustically... And the whole thing is wrapped up in 3'40. It is called "Child Of The Blues" and it must be played in AMR (no, really!!) With "Laughin' Man" we come back to a good, nicely swinging hard, a REZ classic: "Tons of talk about love / Where is it? / Show me real life / I want to embrace it..." The question of the guy who is searching for himself in a world... (this and that). "Bargain", the next track, talks about a "deal" struck with someone who is not introduced. It is a cover of Pete TOWNSHEND, of the WHO (which any self-respecting, slightly "roots" hard rocker ought to know!!). Who is the one for whom you are ready to run all your life, so sure that it is thoroughly worthwhile, right to the end??? With REZ, no ambiguity... Plug in the decoder for the last track. It is entitled "A fantastic God in Heaven". It is Glenn who concludes the platter as he introduced it; very, very "roots", even folk, on harmonica, tapping his foot (or perhaps a bass drum). He sings feverishly of hell, death, Moses, the promised land and the return of the King. He affirms that "nobody can deny the existence of this fantastic God." With the intonation he puts into it, you want to believe him (even if there is something terrifying about it) and that is the aim of the manoeuvre. One might perhaps have liked something cooler to finish, but there you go, hey!! It is hard!! And it is in: (I'll give it to you in one!!) ADONAI METAL ROXX!!