Recent Reviews

November 2024

October 2024

September 2024

August 2024

[ More Music Reviews ]


A Hero For The World: CineRock
A Hero For The World - CineRock CD Album Review

A Hero For The World: CineRock

Melodic Hard Rock/Metal
2.5/5.0

Website Facebook Twitter YouTube
Unsigned/Self-released
Words: Craig Hartranft
Added: 26.11.2017

A Hero For The World is basically the one-man project of Jacob Kaasgaard, a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, composer and producer. He's also quite the ambitious musician as well. This latest album,CineRock, is his second album this year, and in less than six months.

No Band Photo

No Band Photo Provided

As you might deduce from the album art and title, Kaasgaard is doing covers of songs from television and movies like Game of Thrones (show theme), Robin Hood (Everything I Do I do For You), The Karate Kid II (Glory of Love), and Beauty and the Beast (title song). Additionally, he also adds covers songs from The Pet Shop Boys (Go West), Scorpions (Wind Of Change), Simon and Garfunkel (Bridge Over Troubled Water), among others. (The complete track listing can found in this PDF document.) All the songs are re-arranged into either a melodic hard rock or melodic metal composition, often power metal, and sometimes both. For example, The Beauty And The Beast cut comes first as melodic hard rock, then later as power metal.

While cover albums are not uncommon in any musical genre, they can be problematical. The song choices and faithfulness to the a song's original melody and composition can cause a cover to soar with success or suck in utter failure. Of the 17 songs here, I didn't recognize 11 of them. For instance, I've never seen Beauty And The Beast or any Lion King movie, and I've never seen Game Of Thrones. I don't have HBO. In the case of The Pet Shop Boys' Go West, which was not credited in the track listing, I had to look it up for recognition. The same thing for Wind Of Change by The Scorpions. Essentially, for me, no recognition means no interest. It also means I don't know if Kaasgaard has screwed with the songs or not. (And I wasn't about to take the time to do song by song comparisons either.)

That leaves only a few songs of interest. And those songs, like Wind Of Change, Bridge Over Troubled Water, or especially the Bryan Adams' song Everything I Do, I Do For You, were pretty bad. And does anybody really like The Lion Sleeps Tonight by The Tokens? No. Not really. Yet Kaasgaard deserves kudos for covering The World's Greatest (from Ali), basically a R&B number, and for basically leaving The Pet Shop Boys's Go West intact. Mostly, like his previous material, Kaasgaard takes these songs and makes them sound like early Edguy songs, where he mimics Tobias Sammet's voice, and then adds some female vocals. In the end, I found myself merely skipping through this album, going to the songs I knew, and then quickly dismissing almost the entire album as uninteresting and boring.



CraigHartranft.net - New fiction, crime fiction by Craig Hartranft

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

The Bottom Line

With CineRock, a covers album, I found myself merely skipping through the album, going to the songs I knew, and then quickly dismissing almost the entire album as uninteresting and boring.

Find A Review

Alphabetical Index

a b c d e f g h i j
k l m n o p q r s t
u v w x y z #
New & Notable
Read the Lionville: Supernatural Album Review

eviewing my archives, I was pleased to find that I have had the privilege to review every Lionville since their self-titled debut in 2011. Formed by Stefano Lionetti, a songwriter, singer and guitarist based in ... [ Read More ]