CHRIS CAFFERY - review added 9th July 2009
Album Review: House Of Insanity (2009)
For fans of: Heavy Metal... and music that's as mad as the album title suggests
Chris Caffery is best known as the lead guitarist in Savatage and The Trans-Siberian Orchestra. He also co-produced, co-wrote and played on Metalium's seminal debut album, Millenium Metal, and has made guest appearances with artists including Tim 'Ripper' Owens, Metal Church, Joe Lynn Turner and Doro (amongst others). He's a busy boy alright!
House Of insanity, the latest in a long line of solo releases, sees him again performing vocal duties, playing most of the instrumentation and handling production. The unnecessarily handy John Macaluso (Yngwie Malmsteen, Riot, Jorn, Starbreaker) features on drums throughout the album... and that's a good thing.
The sound is a right old melting pot of ideas and styles. Chris' guitar dominates the album and he does, in places, sound phenomenal. He never comes across as anything less than excellent and varies his approach and tone between brutally heavy, thrashy, hard rocking and melodiously sensitive. His vocals are not quite up to the same standard however. He sounds a bit like a rusty barn door pushing through wet gravel, but he's always in tune and gives the record a rustic appeal. I hope he doesn't choose to use other vocalists in future projects because his scalpel-lined throat musings are full of charm and it's hard not to like them.
'Season's Change' fires the album's starting pistol with a vaguely Iron Maiden-flavoured approach. it's a good song with a frantic chorus and bags of character. Next up is the title track... and it's a cracker. The vocals, indeed the whole song, is geared towards a kind of ghost train sound. It's all tinged with creepy fun and would definitely work well in a heavy metal theme park.
'Madonna' slows things down considerably. There's a bright bass sound leading the tune and Chris subdues his vocals to a more sentimental level. The bridge lifts the game and the chorus is as nice as a wallet full of cash. It's not a sonnet in the normal sense of the description, but the song has a certain something. 'Big Brother' takes the album back to a powerful, if disjointed, metal plateau. There are some thunderous drums underpinning Chris' screaming guitars and the way the vocals speed up and slow down is great.
The amusingly titled 'Back's To The Wall' is a brighter song with colourful effects and some nice key changes. It's probably the song Chris' voice sounds purest on and contrasts nicely with his more guttural moments. Ex-Savatage front man Zak Stevens joins Chris for a man-duet on the excellent 'Solitaire'. The lead riff is a scorcher, although the vocal to-ing and fro-ing treads the tightrope between the sublime and the ridiculous.
'I'm Sorry' is a slower doom-laden track that sticks in your mind. It's a simplistic number with something anthemic bubbling under the surface. 'Winter In Hamburg' is the second of the full-spec ballads. It's all a touch cheesy but, if you carefully place your tongue in your cheek, you'll enjoy it. 'No Matter What' is a wart-encrusted dirt-laden beast of a track. It's grungy, rough and more lumpy than a wart on a rhino's butt, but it's great fun and has a guitar sound to die for. It's possibly the best track on the album, but don't quote me on that...
House Of Insanity is an interesting album. It's a got a filthy charm you'll find hard to resist. Albums with impeccable performances and silken production jobs are all well and good, but sometimes it's nice to have something a bit more organic. Chris Caffery's latest offering is so organic it could live on a farm and take mud baths in a rain-sodden field. This album is a total pig, and boy do I love a plate full of sausages!
Check out... That guitar sound on 'No Matter What'.
Track List:
01. Seasons Change
02. House Of Insanity
03. I Won't Know
04. The Fleas
05. Madonna
06. Big Brother
07. Back's To The Wall
08. Solitaire
09. I'm Sorry
10. Shame
11. Winter In Hamburg
12. No Matter What
13. Get Up, Stand Up!
Label: AFM Records
Band websites: Chris Caffery , MySpace
