STEVE CONE – Unfinished Business

Keeping with tradition, a new release by guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and producer Steve Cone can almost be seen as surely a yearly event for the annual Holidays by now. Here’s the business…

For this, his current work, Cone goes for an all digital, non-physical release. Quite a sad evolution, but listeners can be assured that’s about as modern Steve Cone will strive to be, as the music once again aches back to a time when the line between that of Hard Rock and Traditional Heavy Metal was still thin, and the songs loose, melodic, riff-based, and hard-hitting all at once. Back to a time when the likes of April Wine were in their prime, and when bands like Saxon and Riot struck out with youthful, memorable energy. The title is telling; Cone and his faithful sidekick, drummer Erik Fehrenbach started work on Unfinished Business a few years back, but the project was put on hold, releasing Crazy Ei8hts, the soundtrack Cone composed for the much heralded Get Thrashed documentary, instead.

That said, radical differences between Cone’s works are non existent, and that works just fine as there’s a huge void in today’s Metal scene for this approach. As on previous works, Cone proves that he is still able to keep the dynamic flow stable throughout by including the likes of the fast-paced “Eaten Alive” with “The Story Of My Life” where he treats the listener to the more Bluesy side of his playing, and an involving instrumental fittingly titled “Not A Word Is Spoken”. “Now Or Never” is primal Cone; upbeat and riff centered, it’s high octane Heavy Rock N’ Roll in it’s purest sense, while the atmospheric “We Must Be Strong” better showcases Cone’s most limited feature; his voice.