{"id":18386,"date":"2019-04-30T08:36:24","date_gmt":"2019-04-30T12:36:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southeastofheaven.com\/?p=18386"},"modified":"2022-01-06T19:48:23","modified_gmt":"2022-01-07T00:48:23","slug":"album-review-hardline-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/?p=18386","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Hardline &#8211; Life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Hardline &#8211; Life<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Release Date: April 26, 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Hardline is a band that has flown far below my radar for decades.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 I wish I could answer that.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t until I was turned onto German guitar legend Axel Rudi Pell that I was reminded what a monster vocalist Johnny Gioeli is.\u00a0 While I loved his work with ARP, for some reason I was still reluctant to dig into Hardline.\u00a0 2019 brought their new album, Life, and I have to say that before hitting the play button I was a bit hesitant. \u00a0I really had high expectations at this point because of knowing what kind of vocalist Gioli is for ARP but then I said, \u201cWhat the fuck.\u00a0 Here we go!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The first song, \u201cPlace to Call Home\u201d is how you fucking open an album.\u00a0 What a powerhouse song.\u00a0 It\u2019s a melodic, heavy, and powerful song that opens the floodgates for what is a spectacular album.\u00a0 \u201cTake a Chance\u201d is a great nostalgic throwback to the melodic hard rock.\u00a0 Fun hooks, choruses that just beg to be sung along with, and I can even picture myself jamming this in my bedroom with my friends as we passed around a can of Coors light and ate pizza.\u00a0 This is the music that I loved as a kid.<\/p>\n<p><iframe width=\"750\" height=\"422\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/EDyGfOXHr9c?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cPage of Your Life\u201d makes a total 180 to a dark yet gorgeous piano-driven power ballad telling a story that any of us looking to the middle of our lives can relate to and ponder on.\u00a0 Did we really get to where we wanted to go and are we happy and proud of how we got there or do we hold regrets?\u00a0 It\u2019s a pretty fucking heavy concept but one that I could relate to wholeheartedly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cChameleon\u201d is one of two show stoppers on Life.\u00a0 Gioeli not only takes us on a vocal rollercoaster but the music is such a groove-laden song that you can\u2019t help but do the \u201cwhite boy bite your bottom lip and nod\u201d thing.\u00a0 There is so much groove to this song that it really stands on its own from the pack yet it fits perfectly in this collection of songs.<\/p>\n<p>I am not going to lie here but the real show stopper beside \u201cChameleon\u201d is Gioeli and Co\u2019s take on the Queen classic \u201cWho Wants to Live Forever.\u201d\u00a0 First off, covering Queen is a nearly impossible feat and is risky as you are walking upon sacred ground.\u00a0 Second, of all the songs, this song is not one to be trodden upon or performed by the weak but Gioeli hit every note with all the passion, emotion, and heart of someone that very well could\u2019ve written this song himself.<\/p>\n<p>While the rest of Life has Gioeli shining as a writer and a vocalist, \u201cWho Wants to Live Forever\u201d shows that he is more than capable of taking such a gorgeous, classic song and turning into his own thing without any disrespect to the original.\u00a0 The first time I listened to this I cried.\u00a0 The second time, I cried but smiled with a huge feeling of pride for this unsung metal vocalist.\u00a0 It is absolutely stunning and worthy of many listens.<\/p>\n<p><iframe width=\"750\" height=\"422\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/o8mHvxk0Jf4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Hardline\u2019s Life really blew me away and who knew that it would end up being one of my favorite albums of the year?\u00a0 As much as I love him in Axel Rudi Pell\u2019s band, I love hearing Gioeli at the wheel doing his own thing.\u00a0 He\u2019s a great songwriter, a powerful vocalist, and Life is an album that I latched onto very quickly.<\/p>\n<p>Life is a powerful time machine that reminded me of the days when bands were about strong hooks, melodic, heavy guitars, and vocalists with voices larger than life.\u00a0 This album also proved to me that those days, while long gone, haven\u2019t gone away; they will continue to come and just get better with age.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hardline &#8211; Life Release Date: April 26, 2018 Hardline is a band that has flown far below my radar for decades.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 I wish I could answer that.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t until I was turned onto German guitar legend Axel Rudi Pell that I was reminded what a monster vocalist Johnny Gioeli is.\u00a0 While I loved his work with ARP, for some reason I was still reluctant to dig into Hardline.\u00a0 2019 brought their new album, Life, and I have to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":-1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,277],"tags":[2087,2080,2085,2077,2095,180,2078,2090,2094,2084,2086,2079,2076,2196,2088,2089,1844,2081,2082,2083],"class_list":["post-18386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-album-reviews","category-music-news","tag-classic-rock","tag-classic-rock-blog","tag-hard-rock","tag-hard-rock-blog","tag-hardline","tag-heavy-metal","tag-heavy-metal-blog","tag-instrumental-bands","tag-johnny-gioeli","tag-mailchimp","tag-metal","tag-metal-blog","tag-music-blog","tag-occult-rock-blog","tag-prog-rock","tag-progressive-rock","tag-psych-rock","tag-psych-rock-blog","tag-psychedelic-rock-blog","tag-wordpress"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18386","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=18386"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19612,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18386\/revisions\/19612"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}