KILLER KINGS – Burn for Love

Killer Kings is a new project by Frontiers Records in which vocalist Gregory Lynn Hall (ex-101 South) and the kick-ass guitarist Tristan Avakian have joined forces and are backed by Nicholas Papapicco on drums and the ever-present Alessandro Del Vecchio on bass and keyboards. Not exactly a bad line-up, right?

Musically and stylistically, we are talking a mixture of proper 80s hard rock and melodic rock but despite some solid riffs and interesting ideas, the majority of songs come across as a tad uninspired, and the sound and production of the record appears slightly muffled and strangely subdued to a certain extent. It lacks proper spark and power. As talented as these gentlemen are, the vocals and music often fail to truly gel and complement each other, which is quite frustrating as I had high hopes for this one, and the excellent artwork looked really promising. However, the atmospheric ‘In a Different World’ is a memorable track, ‘Another Night, Another Fight’ contains a gorgeous solo and some great melodies, and ‘Two Ships’ is pretty epic, but the highlight is the bluesy, Whitesnake-esque ‘Losing Me’ as it possesses plenty of emotional heft – a killer tune for sure.

Burn for Love is in no way bad, but neither is it one for the history books. There is simply too much filler material and not enough depth and longevity to most of the compositions for that.