NEXX – Colours

I have been picking up buzz about this CD for a while. Of course it’s not easy to get hold of it in the fridge where I live (actually, summer this year seems to be on Wednesday AND Thursday!), but when I visited the Bang Your Head Festival in late June, I found the CD awaiting its new owner. Some spoiled so-called journalists like me don’t spend money on CDs, they call the companies and ask for them instead, but with what I’ve been hearing about this band, this opportunity was too good to miss. And I don’t regret shelling out the cash at all – though I had never heard the band before.

So what kind of buzz made me interested in the first place? I am sure the band members are sick of the comparison by now – but does anyone out there remember the great melodic big hair-band Saraya, lead by singer Sandi Saraya and guitar player Tony Bruno? If not – your loss! (Please send donations to the “where is Sandi Saraya now”-fund here at Metal Express Radio, and mark the envelope “Frode”.) But the thing is; Nexx can indeed make you help remember that band! Not only is the music much in the same style, but also singer Patricia Tapia sounds very much like Sandi. Just take a listen to “Get Fire” and the chorus in “Indifference”, and you’ll see what I mean.

Where Saraya was a little more guitar-driven, as they basically were a four-piece with the essential vocals, guitar, bass and drums – Nexx incorporates that fifth element in the music as well – the keyboards, which make the band go a little more in the AOR direction than hard rock. On the other hand, this rock is hard enough, there are no typical AOR-songs with that “my hair is thin now and my baby left me”-attitude. Fact is – I don’t know many facts about this band as their website is mostly in Spanish, and my Spanish is a little rusty at its best – but yes, I know a few facts: First of all, this is the best debut album I have heard in a long time in the hard rock/AOR-genre (unless they have ten CDs out in Spain that I never heard of). Secondly, music doesn’t get catchier than this. The songwriting is in top league – not even Desmond Child or Jim Vallance would have had much to add to this band. You may check out “Remember” at the Metal Express Radio Jukebox (if it’s still alive and not shut down my Norwegian bureaucracy, more like: bureau-crazy). This CD simply comes without fillers, and at the same time it has a good deal of diversity that makes you play it and crank it again and again. There are rockers and ballads nex(x)t to each other, and Patricia’s voice is one of the best female ones out there today. (She’s so close to Sandi Saraya that even a huge fan like me would have believed this is her new album if someone told me). And that, boys and girls, she can only be proud of. Also, unlike many singers from the Latin part of Europe, where time and structure are no issues, I am not able to detect a Spanish accent at all. Ok, I am not the best Sherlock for that matter, but her English is fine – and the band is in fact about to establish itself pretty well in the UK. Maybe that proves my point?

If you need a melodic rock album every now and then, although your daily plate is full of metal – like mine, you may play safe and get the new Mike Tramp CD.
If you want to discover something new – at least a new band – and you have the slightest confidence in what I try to tell you on this page – Nexx can simply be the best album of the year in its genre. It’s simply highly recommended.