A Teartown Story

In listening to this album, I realize how their biography holds true when it mentions, "it is clear that drummer Jan Keimer, keyboard player Bj?rn Tiemann, bass player Hans Strenge, singer Christian Heise and guitarist Heiko Holler have been playing together for ten years." I also agree that in listening to this album, success will not be by accident. The band's 1996 debut album entitled "Among The Elements" (T&T/Modern Music) was released all over the world, attracting brilliant reviews and considerable sales figures, especially in Europe. This success wasn't just coincidence, its reality.

Upon first hearing this CD, I thought they were just a regular rock band. However, selection #2, "Teartown" and #3, "Disobedience" sounds strictly heavy metal. It gives the sound of aggressively pounding sounds of acoustic guitar rips, drums, and a male vocalist. The difference in these two tracks is track #3 sounds like emotionally charged acoustic guitar riffs, drums, and bass guitar that creates a feeling of someone wanting to be disobedient or challenged in thought process. Both tracks guitar play reminded me of "Dr. Feelgood" by Motley Crue.

Track #4, "Silent Retriever" is the slowest on the disc and it gives the opposite feel with dominating piano keyboard, guitar, and drums with a more down played aggression on the guitar. This song, although at a moderate pace, still has more feeling coming from the artist than earlier tracks.

Track #8, "The Red Line", has the feel of someone driving down a freeway at night pondering what is to come. The vocalist is communicating a pain that is a part of life or fate when someone is in the dark. To end, selection #9, "A New Days Rising" goes back and forth into the strong, aggressive play and mid-tempo rock with vocalists in the background. The track is almost 19 minutes, but it just builds up with piano keyboard play and goes into the guitar riffs, drums, and action-filled aggression of the acoustic guitar.

I agree with the biography that this band "Ricochet" have seasoned musicians which, in the form of their second album, "Zarah ? A Teartown Story", have made a further considerable advance and also have had immense courage to do something new. It works for me.