Lovechild
Soul Collector

February 2007
Released: 2006, Escape Music/Zink Music
Rating: 2.5/5
Reviewer: Anders Sandvall

Lovechild comes from the small country of Lichtenstein, which is located between Switzerland and Austria. It was formed by the ex-Tess member Roger and the ex-Satrox member Werner in 2002. When Sven and Danny (also from Satrox) joined the line-up was compete, and Lovechild could begin to work on material. They recorded a demo in 2003 which later became a Maxi CD that went over really well in Germany, whose media compared them to acts like Steelheart, Bon Jovi, David Coverdale, and Queensryche. That was the Maxi CD; it’s now time to review the debut album, entitled SOUL COLLECTOR. Lovechild plays pretty standard hard rock, and it was maybe a little extreme to liken Lovechild to the above-mentioned acts. They do have minor similarities with David Coverdale’s Whitesnake and Queensryche, though.



Lead singer Werner Schweizer has an amazing voice that he uses with full force. The other members of the band are also skilled musicians. Despite the members’ skills and ambitions, the album is pretty plain and that can be attributed mainly to the very similar songs. They all blend together and most of the songs are the same tempo. The material is neatly packaged and presented, but doesn’t have anything that really grabs hold of you. This is not an album to bang your head to; instead, you just nod your head and think, “Well this was nice.”



There’re a few ups but even more downs on SOUL COLLECTOR. The ups are “Prisoner”, “Perfect Day”, “Left on the Outside”, “No Return”, and “Sunset Rider”, which are heavy riff-based hard rock tracks. The downs are the two especially boring ballads “Battlefield” and “Close”.One thing you can’t complain about is the production and mixing, which was brilliantly done by Tommy Vetterfi (Coroner, Kreator) and the well-known Mika Jussila, respectively.



Personally, I need a little more than this to be impressed, but who knows? Maybe Lovechild will come back with a stunning second album. I hope so.



http://www.zinkmusic.com