Systems Go Wild

I had been looking forward to this release, and have held off a couple weeks on the review in order to fully digest the album. The debut album of Soul Doctor is a pretty good dose of melodic hard rock. Vocalist Tommy Heart's former band, Fair Warning is one of my favorite hard rock bands, so I naturally have an interest in Soul Doctor as well. Unfortunately, my opinion of this album hasn't changed much since I gave it the first spin a couple weeks ago. While Tommy Heart's vocals are still impressive as ever, I find this album very dull. The songwriting is not very impressive and seems to me like it may have been a rushed process. None of the songs are catchy: they are very easily forgettable. There are no hooks and no catchy chorus lines to speak of. Aside from a couple of nice guitar solos here and there, the guitars are… well just there. There are no energetic riffs to give the songs a strong presence and the groove based songs are simply dull. As I make my way through the album, I find that several songs just aimlessly wander without any direction or excitement. The ballads and slow/mid paced songs are particularly boring and do nothing other than bog down the pace of the album. After repeated listens to this album, no song stands out above the others and somehow the whole album seems uninspired (except for the vocals). The limited edition version of this album includes a bonus CD with three live tracks and a fourth track, Wild and On The Run. This previously unreleased track is a well written ballad with piano accompaniment. Needless to say, this album comes as a disappointment to me. Other than the vocals of Tommy Heart, this album does nothing for me. Even Heart's vocals are not enough to save the day. The songs themselves are average at best: many bands of yesterday and today (including Fair Warning) have done this type of thing better. Hopefully the band will recharge the creative batteries and return with a third album that delivers the quality I would expect from this band. Until then, pop in an old Fair Warning disc and the Soul Doctor debut and see if the band can come up with a more interesting album down the road.