Living legend Jimi Jamison, former lead singer of Target, Cobra and Survivor, still belongs to the best vocalists. ONE MAN’S TRASH is a project that sees Jamison teaming up with German songwriter/guitarist Fred Zahl for a brand new album entitled “HiStory”, that sounds like a mixture of Survivor, Jamison’s solo efforts and American Classic Rock.
For those who don’t know Fred Zahl, he is a German musician trained in the USA who has wrote music for several European artists and played gigs with Ken Hensley, Paul Carrack, Alanah Myles and many more.
Searching the perfect voice for a new own project, Zahl met Jimi Jamison last year and together started writing brand new songs. “HiStory” is the first product of this collaboration.
Music-wise One Man’s Trash play rather up-tempo Melodic Rock, often combining AOR structures with classic American rock. Production wise “HiStory” come fairly close to the sound of a Jamison solo album, contrasting the melodic hard rock approach of his recent colaboration album ‘Kimball-Jamison’.
“HiStory”, in good AOR tradition, prioritizes great songwriting over flamboyant performances with the vocals being the protagonist instrument, also delivering most of the melodic lines on the CD.
Upon first play “HiStory” seems like the natural continuation of Jimi’s latest solo album Crossroads, since the new project takes shape on the same mixture of acoustic and electric guitars, complemented by keyboard harmonies and supported by a very natural-sounding rhythm section.
Still, “HiStory” is a substantially more up-lifting album than Crossroads, a super-positive release, one that comes out as a celebration of Jimi’s thirty-year career in rock.
No question, this material is straight to the point, optimistic Melodic Rock / AOR baring no fillers within its track-list; “Real Thing”, “The Restless Kind”, the ambiguous “Lose My Mind”, the autobiographical “History” and the classic-sounding ballad “Through Your Eyes” really say everything regarding the songwriting quality and level of musicianship featured on “HiStory”.
“HiStory” is a fantastic CD.
One Man’s Trash seems to come out of nowhere, still bringing to front the same stimulating sound we have come to expect from Jimi Jamison over the last decade.
This album comes out far more a personal album than either Crossroads or Kimball-Jamison. One happily notes that Jimi has co-written with Zahl all the twelve tracks featured here, as opposed to Crossroads which was composed by Jim Peterik (for the biggest part) and Kimball Jamison having been put together by external songwriters.
If you are a fan of Jimi Jamison and have enjoyed his latest works you definitely do not want to miss out on this remarkable Melodic Rock / AOR effort.
Highly Recommended.
01 – Real Thing
02 – The Restless Kind
03 – Long Time
04 – History
05 – Meadowland
06 – Lose My Mind
07 – Through Your Eyes
08 – She Shine’s
09 – Out Of Control
10 – Tears In My Eyes
11 – The Restless Kind (Acoustic)
12 – History (Hotelroom Version)
Jimi Jamison: Vocals
Fred Zahl: Guitars
Beathoven: Keyboards, Backing Vocals
Timo von Kresslein: Backing Vocals
Heinzangel: Drums, Backing Vocals
Guest musicians:
Hugh McDonald (Bon Jovi): Bass
Ricky Phillips (The Babys, Bad English): Bass
Tommy Denander: Guitar
Bertram Engel (Joshua, Tony Carey): Drums
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