• New Music Reviews
• |
• Archives
• |
• News
• |
• Submissions
• |
• About
• |
• 
• |
• 

January 2025

• Bonfire: Higher Ground
• The Big Deal: Electrified
• Landfall: Wide Open Sky

December 2024

• After Lapse: Pathways
• Illusion Force: Halfana
• Powell-Payne: Voilá

November 2024

• Sunstorm: Restless Fight
• Storace: Crossfire
• Voodoo Circle: Hail To The King
• Lionville: Supernatural
• Starchaser: Into The Great Unkown
• Empires Of Eden: Guardians Of Time
• Lonerider: Down In The Dust
• Seventh Crystal: Entity
• Neal Morse & The Resonance: No Hill For A Climber
• Beardfish: Songs For Beating Hearts
• Impellitteri: War Machine
• Brothers Of Metal: Fimbulvinter

October 2024

• Casandra's Crossing: Garden Of Earthly Delights
• DGM: Endless
• Daytona: Garder la Flamme
• Fate: Reconnect 'N Ignite
• Frost*: Life In The Wires
• Aries Descendant: From The Ashes Of Deceit
• Fans Of The Dark: Video
• Radioactive: Reset
• House Of Lords: Full Tilt Overdrive
• Cleanbreak: We Are The Fire

September 2024

• Sinner's Blood: Dark Horizons
• Serious Black: Rise Of Akhenaton
• Eclipse: Megalomanium II
• SteelCity: Reverence
• Hydra: ReHydrated
• Heartwind: III
• Gabrielle De Val and the Dragonlords: Tiger
• Find Me: Nightbound
• The Nail: The Nail
• Timeless Fairytale: A Story To Tell
• Stryper: When We Were Kings
• Phil Mogg: Moggs Motel
• Pure Reason Revolution: Coming Up To Consciousness
• Jordan Rudess: Permission To Fly

[ More Music Reviews ]

Maverick: Quid Pro Quo

Hard Rock/Heavy Metal

4.0/5.0

Facebook
Massacre Records
Words: Craig Hartranft
Added: 19.11.2014

Naming your band Maverick would suggest certain connotations: the lone dissenter, a rebellious spirit, or an iconoclastic nonconformist. Perhaps, put into the context of modern rock music, all these would fit as Maverick is essentially reviving classic hard rock and heavy metal in Northern Ireland. Yet from their country to the innards of Europe to the warm waters of the Mediterranean, rock is alive. Not so much in America. Cripes. Our mindless citizens, in one week, bought 1.3 million copies of Taylor Swift's latest 1989. Idiots.

Maverick

The music of Quid Pro Quo, their debut album, is straight out of the Eighties, what made it famous. Melodic hard rock with a metal edge, big on riffs, guitar dueling in large solos, as much groove as can be mustered, catchy refrains, and gang vocals. As said in their song In Our Blood, rock n roll's the thing. Most times it works quite well.

Blistering guitars and groove drive Rock n Roll Lady. Got It Bad turns on the accessibility of classic AOR from it's melody, groove, and smooth vocal arrangement. It's radio-friendly fodder. One More Day captures some more of this, again within a quite catchy chorus, and the guitar solo soars. Paint By Numbers steals a page from Aerosmith, adding some shuffle and a feel of latent blues. Alternatively, in the latter third of the album things begin to sound familiar, and requires some patience to distinguish the difference between Shackled and Last Addiction. The riffage, pace, and arrangement is suspiciously similar, but yet different. While hardly dull songs, I can definitely state that I favored the front two-thirds of this album.

All this is to say that Quid Pro Quo is solid start for Maverick, displaying their talent for writing and playing classic melodic hard rock with a metal groove. But the album art is basically horrid; who approved this? Otherwise, recommended.

MAVERICK - Paint By Numbers

Note: All Amazon advertising in this review first benefits the artist, then Craig Hartranft also receives a residual. Click, and thanks for your support.

Quid Pro Quo is solid start for Maverick, displaying their talent for writing and playing classic melodic hard rock with a metal groove. Recommended.

Alphabetical Index

The Powell Payne project, created in 2022 is the collaboration of Mark "Penfold Powell (ex-drummer of Psycho Kiss) and Adam Payne (former vocalist of Airrace). With guitarist Adam Davies and keyboard player ... [ Read More ]