{"id":12436,"date":"2014-01-20T01:00:29","date_gmt":"2014-01-20T06:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southeastofheaven.com\/?p=12436"},"modified":"2022-01-06T19:51:51","modified_gmt":"2022-01-07T00:51:51","slug":"album-review-axel-rudi-pell-into-the-storm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/?p=12436","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Axel Rudi Pell – Into The Storm"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Axel Rudi Pell \u2013 Into the Storm<\/strong>
\nRelease Date<\/strong>: January 21, 2014
\nHighlights:<\/strong> Tower of Lies, Burning Chains, Touching Heaven, Hey Hey My My, Into the Storm<\/p>\n

As you all know, I\u2019m a huge fan of Axel Rudi Pell.\u00a0 When his 16th<\/sup> album Into the Storm hit my desk early this year I found myself feeling a bit apprehensive.\u00a0 Why apprehensive?\u00a0 Well, 2012\u2019s Circle of the Oath was a good release but it failed to capture the excitement, energy, and fire that his previous album The Crest did.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t suck by any means but Circle of the Oath just left me feeling a bit \u201cmeh.\u201d\u00a0 Like with any great band that we love, we sometimes just need to be ok with the fact that they can\u2019t always nail it.<\/p>\n

With Into the Storm, Axel and Co. totally recaptured that fire and not only hit the nail on the head but they drove that nail clear through the fucking board.\u00a0 Into the Storm is the first album to feature new drummer Bobby Rondinelli and that right there is no small potatoes.\u00a0 In my opinion, I\u2019ve never thought that having a new drummer can totally change and remold your sound.\u00a0 Former drummer Mike Terrana had a very overly produced and at times digital sound to his drumming while Rondinelli brings in a much more live and organic sound.\u00a0 Rondinelli\u2019s experience playing with bands like Rainbow and Black Sabbath totally brought about a sound and feel that completes the Axel Rudi Pell band in a way that has been missing for way too long.<\/p>\n

I also have to wonder if the addition of Rondinelli is what fueled Pell to create an album of songs that at times was more reminiscent of Rainbow and Deep Purple.\u00a0 Songs like \u201cBurning Chains\u201d and \u201cTouching Heaven\u201d have keyboardist Ferdy Doernberg laying down heavy on the organ putting out a pretty heavy Jon Lord vibe as opposed to the more Dio-esque synthesizer sound that I\u2019m used to hearing Axel\u2019s tunes.\u00a0 These two songs in particular are probably two of my favorite ARP songs to date and I\u2019d love to hear them delve more into that organ sound as I felt that it really worked awesome with Pell\u2019s guitar playing.<\/p>\n

The cover of the Neil Young classic \u201cHey Hey, My My\u2019 was actually really fucking cool.\u00a0 Axel and Co. almost always nail some pretty awesome covers and this one goes down as one my favorites.\u00a0 They took this song and once again transformed it into something unique.\u00a0 I love it when bands do that.\u00a0 The ballad \u201cChanging Times\u201d was pretty much the only miss for me.\u00a0 This wasn\u2019t the best ballad moment that the band has had and definitely had me reaching for the skip button.\u00a0 The album\u2019s closing track \u201cInto the Storm\u201d is a 10 minute masterpiece that sounds like a lost track from Black Sabbath\u2019s Heaven and Hell or Mob Rules album.\u00a0 This song really blew my mind and just may be one of Axel Rudi Pell\u2019s all-time greatest moments.\u00a0 Closing the album with this one gives the album a sense of completeness and I can only imagine what hearing this one live would be like!\u00a0 What a gem of a song.<\/p>\n

Into the Storm is a great place for Axel Rudi Pell and Co. to be.\u00a0 It\u2019s a testament that even after 16 albums Pell is still full of fire and full of great ideas.\u00a0 With the addition of Rondinelli Axel and Co. sound like a much more cohesive and consistent unit. While Into the Storm is a truly great album, there\u2019s nothing new or groundbreaking here and that\u2019s perfectly ok.\u00a0 .\u00a0 Axel Rudi Pell has a formula and much like bands like AC\/DC and even The Ramones, it\u2019s a formula that works for him and he never steers away from it.\u00a0 It\u2019s a formula that has worked for 16 albums with varying degrees of success and this time around, he knocked it out of the park.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Axel Rudi Pell \u2013 Into the Storm Release Date: January 21, 2014 Highlights: Tower of Lies, Burning Chains, Touching Heaven, Hey Hey My My, Into the Storm As you all know, I\u2019m a huge fan of Axel Rudi Pell.\u00a0 When his 16th album Into the Storm hit my desk early this year I found myself feeling a bit apprehensive.\u00a0 Why apprehensive?\u00a0 Well, 2012\u2019s Circle of the Oath was a good release but it failed to capture the excitement, energy, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,277],"tags":[479],"class_list":["post-12436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-reviews","category-music-news","tag-axel-rudi-pell"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12436"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19776,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12436\/revisions\/19776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}