Kings and Queens

With the rare luxury of retaining the same line up from their previous effort, Pell’s band is sticking safely to the same formula of 2001’s Shadow Zone. The only notable exception is the album’s pacing. While seven of the nine songs (we won’t count the intro) are very good, tracks 6 and 10 are both over 8 minutes and plod along with a sort of old school Black Sabbath vibe. There are three power ballads at tracks 5, 8 and 10 and while track 9 has a powerful chorus, the verses continuously drop back to a melancholy meandering, which leaves track 7 as the lone up-tempo track in the final six songs of the cd. So even though most of the songs are very good, the cd kind of drags by the end, and nullifies the impact of the first three songs. --Scott