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Even heroes need a parachuteBeating TimeTITLE: EVEN HEROES NEED A PARACHUTE First, a health warning: this album is loud. If you listen with headphones, make sure the volume is turned well down before you start. I’m not kidding. I like my music loud, but I almost jumped out of my seat. I didn’t know it was possible to rip headphones off that quickly! This is rock with attitude, a wall of sound, heavily compressed, and much more in-your-face than Oasis or U2. That said, you will probably need to wear headphones in order to hear the words clearly. I tried listening in the car, but road safety had to be the priority. So, why all the noise? Most of the songs are shouting a wake-up call to the lost. There’s nothing particularly profound in the lyrics, and sometimes things get a little cliched or ambiguous, but there are plenty of angles on ‘the human condition’ and a constant and urgent call for repentance and faith. It’s not a feel-good album, but it is pretty thought-provoking. Where it falls short is in theological clarity. Jesus gets a mention, but many of the songs could be interpreted without reference to him. Lyrics‘Black Box’: The plane is starting to smoke / I think that everyone knows that this thing will soon be going down / Some people think that we’ll choke, some people think there’s hope, which will it be? / ... / Now we’re crashing down, what will they see? / When there’s nothing left, who are we? / It’s going down like a flame / There’s no one out there to blame / We made our choice and now there’s no more time / The black box is hearing the hope and the fearing, what will it say? / After all the smoke has cleared, there’s only one record that they’ll ever see / Our black box says it all, it tells them who we are. Musically and technically this is a fairly impressive first recording project. Some of the structure is a tad formulaic and repetitive, but there is a fair amount of variety from track to track. If full-on distorted lead guitar with plenty of crunch and feedback is your thing, you won’t be disappointed. I find the strained vocals rather wearing, but it’s fine in small doses. In a word: LOUD!PGDH
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