MPG – Martie Peters Group

This album is the strangest ride. It is rare to find a recording that starts out as good as Martie Peters Group, but after a while begins to slide downhill fast and ends up flat on its face.

The first track, “The Beast Inside,” is great. Main man Martie Peters (x-Push) has penned an up-tempo tune where his hoarse and melodic voice moves through some captivating vocal lines. This piece is a real fine moment of Melodic Hard Rock, with some indisputably clever guitar arrangements.

The style is a whole lot in the White Lion/Shadow King/Sons Of Angels/Stage Dolls landscape (to mention a few bands easily associated with MPG). Peters’ hoarse voice sounds, to a large extent, along the lines of Rod Stewart and Bryan Adams. And, as the band moves on to the second track, “Riot On The 5th Floor,” this recording would certainly be quite promising to the fans of Melodic and Upbeat Rock. “Riot On The 5th Floor” is elegantly escorted by some notably great drumming, indicating that this will be a Melodic Rock ‘N’ Roll ride with a punch.

Talking about Rod Stewart, MPG has recorded the Rod Stewart/Ron Wood song “Dixie Toot” for the album’s finale. The track doesn’t work very well, but a lot is going on worse prior to that. Even though the third track, “Only Dreaming,” sure conveys evidence of Peters’ penchant for joyful and rhythm driven rock tunes, this is the first sign of a long string of compositions leading towards an ugly kingdom of cliches and dullness.

“Number 1,” the fourth track, starts with a keyboard intro that foreshadows the fact something bad is about to happen. At this point you can smell a meal from Ballad Hell about ready to be served. The drums and guitars are still kicking in now and then, but the vocal arrangements, including some very banal backing vocals, just drag down the high hopes originating from the album’s pleasing start. Lyrics like /I’ve got something that I want to tell you, baby. It’s a miracle you are still in my heart. When I look at you, yeah, you’re still number one/ don’t save the day either.

After this, you get another cliche and embarrassing ballad in “Takes Some Time.” Thereafter you get two more: “Heart Is An Empty Space” and “A World Without You.” Even though Slott and Lledon on guitars, and Sclein on drums, from time to time boil underneath with edgy riffing and hungry drumming, the songs never lift up from the ground.

Martie Peters & Co manage to do something right with the following track, “Take Me Over The Edge,” but the magic from the album’s first couple of numbers is gone. By now the cliches and a rapidly increasing line of embarrassing lyrics have long ruined the party.

The following two cuts have nothing to live up to, and don’t even try. The aforementioned “Dixie Toot” at the end sure cares to take the good old rock and roll sound of them glory days of the 70’s, but not even the hard-working piano runs manage to save anything out of the wreck. Sclein indeed gets a good grade on the skins through the last five minutes of the disc, but it’s too late. Maybe next time Martie Peters writes a rock album (and please do, Peters!), he’ll be easier on that red wine and blow out some of the candles. Next time let’s hope he celebrates sentimentality somewhere else, and instead brings on that rockin’ feeling.

Lineup

Martie Peters – Vocals
Martin Slott – Guitar
Anthony Lledo – Guitar
BJ – Bass
Jakob Schlein – Drums