Monday, June 6, 2011

Classic melodic rock CD of the week


By Stephen Kasenda

EVERY MOTHER’S NIGHTMARE “Wake Up Screaming” (1993)

"Wake Up Screaming" was the second release by Every Mother's Nightmare The record has an intriguing cover portraying a baby surrounded by poisonous snakes – looks more like a thrash album than a glam one. Almost everybody played grunge in 1993, but EMN didn't want to tune down their guitar and still insisted on throwing some swaggering sleaze riffs with raspy screams - unsticking themselves from the trend.

"House of Pain" and "Closet Down The Hall" are entertaining openers, each with a gloomy nuance and thumping beat. EMN wrote some good power ballads here such as "I Needed You", "Already Gone", "I Hate Myself", and the magnificent "If I Had My Way". Surprisingly, there are a lot of addictive headcrusher tracks here as well from "Tobacco Road" and "Cryin' Shame" to midtempo commercial rocker, "Slip and Fall".

Unfortunately, the sound production is awfully horrible - you have to crank up to an extremely loud volume to enjoy, yet the drums still sound distant and buried. But overall, I will say this is a very good album judging by the year of its release: a good vocal, a great guitar, a jawdropping album!

Read more of Stephen’s features at MetalMusicArchives.

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