My Sunday Song – “Save Me Tonight” by The Defiants

For My Sunday Song #416, we are going back to The Defiants and this time around we are talking about “Save Me Tonight” from their self-titled 2016 album. The Defiants are Paul Laine, Bruno Ravel and Rob Marcello and basically they are Danger Danger 2.0. Better, stronger and have aged nicely. The Defiants don’t get much notice here in the States and that is too bad as songs like this show this band has the goods to take over the world. If this was the 80’s, they would be as big as Bon Jovi…at least I think they would…they are better then today’s Bon Jovi at least.

A ballad that is full of so much heartbreak and heartache. The song is about a man who is fallen so deeply in love with this woman, but she is leaving and it is over. He is in so much pain and he wants her to come back and save him and give their love one more chance. There are some great lines that highlight the pain such as “They say love never dies but it sure leaves a scar” and “And all that’s left behind is a tattoo on your heart”. A beautifully written song.

But how beautiful is it really? Is it too sappy? No, not in the least. The Defiants put on a master class on how to perform a ballad. The music is tender, heartfelt and aches with the pains of the lyrics. The opening synths give it an almost atmospheric tone like floating through the air. The guitar tone is almost weeping and that solo will leave you breathless. But the winner is those vocals by Paul Laine. The notes he hits are amazing, the angelic tones, the emotiveness of his words is crazy good. Paul is still one of the finest vocalists out there today. He still has it in spades. If you ever thought the ballad was dead…here is proof it is alive and better than ever.

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My Sunday Song – “Goodbye” by DarkHorse

For My Sunday Song #414, we are going to go a little country with Paul Laine’s band called DarkHorse. The song is called “Goodbye” and is off the album called “Let It Ride” which was released in 2014, almost 25 years after his rock debut album. This is Paul’s first dive in to the Country genre and saw him head to down to Nashville and work with Steve Ohe. I don’t think the song was a single and the album didn’t do much in the charts here in the States, but it was a country album that country fans missed out on for sure.

The song is a love letter to the woman who left him for another man. He’s heartbroken and looking for closure but doesn’t know how to get that closure as she is gone and he hasn’t been album to properly say goodbye. He loved her so much that the fact she left has scarred him deeply. He wants to see her one more time even if it is just to say goodbye, but he can’t do that if he doesn’t know how why she left and if it isn’t truly over.

The song is a ballad and yes there is a country twang to it, but at its heart, the song is still a melodic rock love song. It has that 80’s rock, ballad sound with a few country guitars such as a slide and steel guitar. Paul’s vocals are so tender and heartbreakingly sad that the emotion from those lyrics oozes out. You can feel the pain he is feeling. His vocals never age and he can still hit these high notes that most artist would kill for. As far as ballads go, they don’t get much better than this. You will see it leans less country and more rock if you listen to the heart of the song.

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My Sunday Song – “Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart” by Chris Cornell

For My Sunday Song #348, we are going deep in to “Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart” by Chris Cornell. The song was written by Chris and is off his 2015 album ‘Higher Truth’. The song was the only single off the album and went to #7 US Rock Airplay Billboard Chart and #1 in Canada on their Rock Chart.

Chris has spoken on this one where he came up with the title and it immediately made him think what the song was going to be about. It is about when you find someone or maybe even something new in your life that you forget about everything else including the fact you had given up on life and that your heart was broken. It is actually a tremendously sad thing if you think about it. But when we are so broken, maybe something new in our life is really what we needed in the first place. However, this person he is talking about seems to bring him a lot of misery as it sounds so tumultuous in nature. The time spent dealing with this person and the awfulness they bring to him has consumed he forgets that the relationship is breaking his heart more than it already was.

The song starts off with a mandolin it the sounds is so full of melancholy. When Chris comes in with the first verse you can hear a sadness to the voice. Musically, there is a lot going on there and so many bits of beauty in it as well. By the second verse, the tempo picks up and it feels like a happier song despite the sorrow in those lyrics. I like that dichotomy.

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Axel Rudi Pell – ‘The Ballads’ (1993) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

After Jeff Scott Soto had finished his vocals on the ‘Eternal Prisoner’ album for Axel Rudi Pell, he went back to the states to continue to work with his band Slam. Then it was on to work on the next Talisman album ‘Genesis’. But his obligations weren’t done with Axel. Axel wanted to do an album full of nothing but ballads so Jeff was brought back in April 1993 to finish up some work on several songs to be included on the album. Jeff was only on 4 of the 10 songs, two were instrumentals, two from Rob Rock with one from Karl Holthaus both previous singers of Axel’s.

The album was released on September 7, 1993 and I guess it was successful as Axel did a total of five of these Ballad compilations. ‘The Ballads’ release had a mixture of previously released tracks, some previously unreleased tracks and even a couple covers. It is a lot of ballads to have on an album. It caused a mixture of reactions. Some metal fans were turned off because the album was nothing but ballads, however, you had a section of non-metal people that were now introduced to Axel’s music because it was all ballads. Heck it was the ballads that probably brought a lot of women in to the Glam music scene anyway…that and the fact they wanted to know the secrets on how the guys got their hair so big and poofy. But lets talk about the music instead of the hair.

“You Want Love” opens the album and was one of the new tracks recorded by Jeff Scott Soto for this release. Opens with acoustic guitars and then Soto comes in singing in a soft falsetto. The chorus brings harmonies and the bass and drum. From here on out, the tempo stays relatively consistent. Jeff does sound great, I’ll give him that, but the song is a little dull as it is too same-same sounding throughout. Even the solo is a little lifeless and boring.

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