“Heavy Hitters II” — Reviewed

If you haven’t heard of George Lynch or Jeff Pilson, they played in the extant 80s glam metal band Dokken. If you haven’t heard of Dokken – named after its frontman Don Dokken – that isn’t because they aren’t any good but because rock both sides of the Atlantic and indeed the world over has produced so many excellent bands that sampling them all is an impossible task, at least if you need to keep abreast of other, more important things that are going on in the world.  One Dokken track you may have heard, especially if you are a cult horror fan, is Dream Warriors because it appears on the soundtrack of A Nightmare On Elm Street 3.  

Sadly, this 12 track album – which will be released August 11 – fails to deliver, because apart from the excellent final track, it is all covers. What else can be said about it? Well, it is eclectic, if nothing else. It opens with Sledgehammer, not the most inspiring of songs from not the most inspiring of artists; Gabriel should have stayed with Genesis. Carry On is a semi-acoustic track recorded originally by Crosby, Stills & Nash. The Stroke is a far from impressive Billy Squier number – whatever happened to him? He is still around and still flying largely under the radar.

Radioactive is being streamed as a single; you can also find it on YouTube. Dating from 2012, the original recording by Imagine Dragons has run up a staggering 1.4 billion views on a YouTube channel that has well over thirty million subscribers. Rock fans will almost certainly prefer this uptempo cover, but don’t expect it to be anything like as popular. 

Smokescreen Lightning is a Howlin’ Wolf number; the legendary bluesman died in 1976 but he wouldn’t be displeased with this version. Other tracks include Jumpin’ Jack Flash, a song that you have almost certainly heard, and Stay With Me. This latter is the surprise track because the cover is far better than the original, which was written and recorded by the UK artist Sam Smith. However, it is doubtful if they would have recorded it if they’d realised what it is really about, even though it topped the US chart and made number 2 in the UK. Smith’s recent efforts, one video in particular, have taken him from the top of the charts into the sewers. Best not to mention them here.

The final track on this album and the only original composition is called It’s A Wonderful Life, not an original title for a song, and apparently inspired after a fashion by the 1946 film of the same title. This is a much better effort, which begs the question why couldn’t at least Sledgehammer and The Stroke be ditched for something new?

Heavy Hitters II can be pre-ordered in three formats with the usual caveats about postal costs when shipping from California to Europe and elsewhere.