PRAYING MANTIS: Defiance (MELODIC HARD ROCK): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

For 43 years now, Praying Mantis have been bringing us albums of their hushed, melodic hard rock, deserving to compete for the longevity award. The beast wasted no time in presenting us with its latest work, two years after "Katharsis", quite average.

The more opuses pass, the more Praying Mantis transforms over the years its melodic hard rock into an increasingly polished A.O.R.. "Defiance" thus accumulates mid-tempi, when they don't fall into the balladry, which wouldn't be prohibitive if they were pleasant. Unfortunately, the eleven tracks on offer here fight it out to see which one generates the least impact.

We can mention is a promising opening with the aptly named 'From The Start', which recalls the glorious years gone by while drawing closer to Europe, and 'Never Can Say Goodbye', where the sympathetic guitar melody is a pleasure to hear. To these two convincing tracks can be added 'One Heart', with its welcome Spanish guitars, and 'Let's See', which, thanks to its twin six-strings, will arouse the interest of Praying Mantis followers.

As for the rest, it's all gloomy melody (the eponymous title track), pop rock worthy of the Flashdance soundtrack ('Feelin' Lucky'), mawkish ballad ('Forever In My Heart') and even ridiculous melody ('Standing Tall'). In the midst of this insipid jumble, a cover of Rainbow's 'I Surrender' emerges as the album's best track.

With "Defiance", Praying Mantis doesn't succeed in making us forget its latest wanderings, and even sinks into regions from which it may never return. The image of this rare NWOBHM survivor fades with time, like that of a dearly departed who, as the years go by, slowly disappears from our memory. - Official website

PRAYING MANTIS

DEFIANCE

FRONTIERS RECORDS

MELODIC HARD ROCK