Outlier

Personnel: Eric Förster (guitar).
Audio Mixer: Lenny Wolf.
Recording information: Two Square Noise Factory, Hamburg, Germany.
Photographer: Marco J. Drews.
Lenny Wolf, the frontman, creator, and now lone (wolf) member of Kingdom Come, the German hard rockers with a flair for all things Page and Plant who arrived a hair or two late to the hair metal party in 1988 with their eponymous, chart-topping debut, broadens the group's sonic horizons on Outlier, the thirteenth studio album to be released under the moniker. Recorded at Wolf's home studio in Hamburg, the ten-track collection manages to maintain the bluesy, brash, and melancholic vibe that has served as the group's foundation over the years, while introducing some new textures, mainly of the arpeggiated synth variety, on standout tracks like "Rough Ride Rallye" and "When Colors Break the Grey," but for the most part, these deviations are largely overshadowed by Wolf's classic rock tendencies, as evidenced by rollicking Zep jams like "Let the Silence Talk" and "Skip the Cover and Heal," and grandiose, midtempo churners like "God Does Not Sing Our Song" and the stellar "Holy Curtain," the latter of which is much more Klaus Meine than it is Robert Plant. ~ James Christopher Monger