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Heart & Stone
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| By
Tate Bengtson
By the time that the
impressive third track rolled around, I was already
humming. Heart & Stone is a band that cannot be pigeonholed in any
genre
outside of a broad-based hard rock formation. While there are some Led
Zeppelin-sounding movements in some of the guitar passages, particularly
the acoustic-based songs like "Tender Smile," Heart &
Stone really does
not sound like any other band that I can recall. The vocalist has a
pleasingly warm tone, almost whispered it is so gentle at times, and yet
quite capable at venting a little anger when need be, often with a
hypnotic grasp of melody that is restrained and yet quite catchy (ie.
"Always"). Other tracks carry a bit of a Whitesnake vibe, such
as "One
In The Same," where the raspy vocals meet with some of the flashier
guitar passages on the album, giving off a very 80s hard rock vibe.
While I do not find Heart & Stone's restraint to always work in its
favor on the heavier tracks, where I keep on wishing that the band would
reach out and grasp that mammoth riff or screeching vocal hook that
would seem to be just around the corner, Legacy of Stone remains a
fairly solid slab of hard rock that is particularly strong during the
acoustic sections. For my tastes, that is probably not enough to draw me
to the album on a repeated basis on that strength alone, but this is
quite impressive on its stronger songs, and certainly above average on
its weaker songs, the latter generally corresponding to its attempts to
play it heavy.
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