SPIRITUAL BEGGARS: Sunrise To Sundown (HARD ROCK): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

Rightly or wrongly, we have always believed that Spiritual Beggars has been sacrificed to the benefit of Arch Enemy who became from "Wages Of Sin" the main home port of guitarist Mike Amott. Maybe this is why JB, his former singer left the ship to devote himself to his Grand Magus which is well worth it by the way.

If replacing him by Apollo Papathanasio might have seemed at first an astonishing if not unfortunate choice, the performance, worthy of David Coverdale, of the ex Firewind (among many others) on "Return To Zero" immediately swept away our doubts. Since then, the band doesn't only seem to have found a stable line-up (and probably the most solid it has ever known) but also its place alongside an Arch Enemy.

Three years after a well-made "Earth Blues" which lacked a bit of variety, "Sunrise To Sundown" unveils a band in better shape than ever. Produced like its predecessor by Staffan Karlsson, this ninth opus (already!) even wants to be a model of the genre and capture this seventies vibe with flying colors. Rising high above the fray, Spiritual Beggars splashes out of its class these forty-six minutes of hard rock, between tradition and modernity, sharp catchy and epic power.

As its title and its visuals full of winks at the covers of "Another Way To Shine" and "Mantra III" suggest, "Sunrise To Sundown" has the miraculous virtues of a fair synthesis between the past and the present of the Swedes, even if it means taking up melodies and riffs already heard. It doesn't matter because the pleasure is there, immense.

According to a tried and tested recipe, the listener is launched by a direct track, eponymous mouth-watering with unstoppable bites. After this warm-up, the album continue with 'Diamond Under Pressure', which evokes the 'Might Just Take Your Life' of the Deep Purple, giving word to Per Wiberg who still knows how to delight us with his haunted keyboards.

Propelled by the Greek's organ of fire, the album is quite simply one of the most beautiful tributes ever heard to Deep Purple Mark III, Rainbow, Dio and the early Whitesnake (the best?). Nervous and heavy ('Hard Road', 'Still Hunter') or faster ('You've Been Fouled', 'What Doesn't Kill You') fireworks coexist with epic monuments full of bewitching atmospheres, Sometimes slower, like 'I Turn To Stone' with its orientalizing arabesques and its eruption of six-strings that pierce it in a most enjoyable finale, or the bluesy 'No Man's Land', but always dripping with feeling, witness this 'Lonely Freedom' that sees Mike Amott reach the G-spot during a divine solo he has the secret.

There's absolutely nothing to throw away from this rich and generous record: eleven tracks, eleven anthems. And in the end, one would almost come to thank the Swedes for relegating Spiritual Beggars to the rank of luxury side project, which allows it to keep a freshness, a desire, which seems far from wanting to fade away... - Official website

SPIRITUAL BEGGARS

SUNRISE TO SUNDOWN

INSIDEOUT MUSIC

HARD ROCK