{"id":7986,"date":"2011-11-04T07:00:57","date_gmt":"2011-11-04T11:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southeastofheaven.com\/?p=7986"},"modified":"2022-01-06T19:53:37","modified_gmt":"2022-01-07T00:53:37","slug":"album-review-white-wizzard-flying-tigers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/?p=7986","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: White Wizzard – Flying Tigers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>White Wizzard – Flying Tigers<\/strong>
\nRelease Date<\/strong>: November 15, 2011
\nHighlights<\/strong>: Fight To The Death, Flying Tigers, Fall of Atlantis, Blood on the Pyramids, Demons and Diamonds, War Of The Worlds<\/p>\n

Releasing a sophomore effort for any artist is a stressful thing to do, especially if your debut was met with lots of critical acclaim from press and from fans. \u00a0Every now and then a band releases a sophomore album that completely surpasses it\u2019s predecessor showing significant growth and an evolution of sorts. \u00a0Unfortunately, \u201cFlying Tigers\u201d by White Wizzard is not that album. \u00a0The band\u2019s previous album \u201cOver The Top\u201d remains one of my favorite modern metal albums. \u00a0It was catchy, kitschy fun and the songs were even memorable. \u00a0All those qualities seem to be sadly lacking from \u201cFlying Tigers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The album opens with \u201cFight to the Death\u201d which is a really solid and flooring piece of metal that easily could have been on \u201cOver The Top.\u201d \u00a0Well played and well executed, I was hopeful that this would set the pace for what was to come. \u00a0Unfortunately, things took a somewhat ridiculous turn \u00a0with \u201cWest L.A Nights\u201d which once again boasted some really impressive well played music. \u00a0It\u2019s just that lyrics like \u201cThe sands and winds are blowing through my soul. \u00a0Makes me want to lose all self control. \u00a0The Rainbow\u2019s rocking and the boys are ready to go.\u201d \u00a0For a second I thought I was just typing out the lyrics to a Poison song. \u00a0These aren\u2019t the lyrics I think of when I think of an awesome metal band. \u00a0Ok, so maybe Saxon but only because it would have been 1982.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The performances as a whole on \u201cFlying Tigers\u201d is really quite stellar until you get to the guitar solos. \u00a0The absence of a solid and integrated guitarist is very apparent when listening to the delivery of these songs and this causes the songs to really suffer at times. \u00a0The rhythm playing is outstanding and Leon\u2019s bass playing as always is really quite remarkable but what happened to the solos? \u00a0That ending of \u201cStarchild\u201d sounds like a complete meltdown of incompetence. \u00a0I\u2019m sure it was done intentionally but it just didn\u2019t cut it for me. \u00a0Cut these solos out and you\u2019ll have an even better album. \u00a0It also should be no surprise that the MVP of this album is vocalist Wyatt Anderson. \u00a0Anderson has to be one of the greatest modern metal singers out there but even his killer performance cannot deter from the lyrical content.<\/p>\n

Jon Leon is definitely not ashamed about showing his heavy Ronnie James Dio influence on songs like \u201cStarchild\u201d but one can only take so many \u201cwings of a dragon\u201d or \u201cflying\/soaring high on the wings of [insert winged animal here] references. \u00a0I also can\u2019t help but feel that there\u2019s a conflict of interest here where Leon feels that soaring on the wings of a dragon is a good thing. \u00a0Didn\u2019t Dio want to \u201ckill the dragon?\u201d \u00a0I mean, unless you\u2019re talking about flying on the back of the Luck Dragon from The Never Ending Story. \u00a0He seemed like a nice dragon. \u00a0Things that make you go \u201chm\u201d indeed. \u00a0The corny sexual undertones of \u201cNight Train to Tokyo\u201d and \u201cNightstalker\u201d don\u2019t do much to save \u201cFlying Tigers\u201d from plummeting into the ground. \u00a0My eyes were rolling so much during these songs that I felt like I was having a seizure. \u00a0Please let it get better from here.<\/p>\n

When the \u201cconceptual\u201d part of the album was about to start I was already expecting the worst but all of the sudden, here comes \u201c Fall of Atlantis.\u201d \u00a0I couldn\u2019t believe my ears. \u00a0This song was absolutely outstanding. \u00a0I literally stood up out of my chair and I said to myself, \u201cThis could be as good as any song on Iron Maiden\u2019s \u201cSeventh Son of a Seventh Son\u201d album. \u201cBlood on the Pyramids\u201d and \u201cWar of the Worlds\u201d also proved to be stellar. \u00a0I didn\u2019t really catch the conceptual side of them but what I was floored by was just how great these three songs are. \u00a0My only question is this. \u00a0Why can\u2019t the rest of \u201cFlying Tigers\u201d play out like these three songs. \u00a0Leon is obviously capable of writing an epic metal masterpiece and did so with these songs.<\/p>\n

\u201cFlying Tigers\u201d is a musically great album that is plagued only by lyrical mediocrity that at times come close to reaching Spinal Tap and even Poison like proportions. \u00a0Unfortunately, the best part of this album lies buried so deep towards the end that I almost didn\u2019t make it to these songs. \u00a0The absence of a solid line up really causes this album to suffer and not be as cohesive of an album as it really could be. \u00a0If I had to sum up \u201cFlying Tigers\u201d in two words I would say \u201cparty metal.\u201d \u00a0You know what I\u2019m talking about. \u00a0Like when you were a kid and you\u2019d show up to a party with a bunch of people and the music was loud and everyone was just talking and being rowdy. \u00a0Nobody thought the music sucked but at the same time, it wasn\u2019t engaging enough to make anyone shut the fuck up and listen. \u00a0This album definitely didn\u2019t suck but it didn\u2019t come close to meeting my expectations as a follow up to \u201cOver The Top.\u201d \u00a0Maybe if this current White Wizzard line up can stick it out, there will be a greater sense of focus, direction and execution on the next one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

White Wizzard – Flying Tigers Release Date: November 15, 2011 Highlights: Fight To The Death, Flying Tigers, Fall of Atlantis, Blood on the Pyramids, Demons and Diamonds, War Of The Worlds Releasing a sophomore effort for any artist is a stressful thing to do, especially if your debut was met with lots of critical acclaim from press and from fans. \u00a0Every now and then a band releases a sophomore album that completely surpasses it\u2019s predecessor showing significant growth and an […]<\/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":[458],"class_list":["post-7986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-reviews","category-music-news","tag-white-wizzard"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7986","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=7986"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19837,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7986\/revisions\/19837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}