BERNIE TORME – BlackHeart (2015)

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Among many others, Jimmy Page, Def Leppard’s Phil Collen or Vivian Campbell once said; ‘I love the guitar playing of Bernie Tormé’. Legendary British guitarist BERNIE TORME (ex-Gillan, ex-Ozzy Osbourne, ex-Atomic Rooster) returns with a new album to be released next October 2.
This brand new musical output, which is entitled “BlackHeart“, contains twelve awesome and mindblowingly hard rockin’ catchy tunes that are filled to the brim with great riffs, amazing basslines, rum-soaked vocals and thunderous drums.

After some explorative albums, “Blackheart” is much more in keeping with the classic whammy bar action of early solo Tormé albums like ‘Turn Out The Lights’ and the dive bombing six-string riffs he delivered in spades as part of the mighty Ian Gillan Band.
The music is almost hypnotic in places, yet beautifully intense and hard rocking, too. Torme has a sound and musical identity of his own that is totally unique, not only in terms of how he writes riffs and melodies and so on, but also in terms of the actual arrangements as well as the moods and atmospheres evoked by and within his songs.
Bassist Chris Heilmann does a great job and compliments Bernie perfectly while the drummer, Ian Harris, is solid as hell and lays down a fat, heavy beat.

The songs that constitute “BlackHeart” are slightly more varied and dynamic compared to those that made up Torme previous albums.
For one thing, “BlackHeart” contains straight-up hard rocking tunes that are in-your-face, highly energetic, and fun to listen to, but the gentle and melancholic “Miles to Babylon” and to some extent “Flow” are something else entirely and they are very moving and emotional compositions.
I really like the diversity of the album, and you can really tell that these guys are enjoying themselves and having fun playing.
The shredding guitars, the intense riffing, and the unique vocals are all there, but the mellow and more moody stuff that creeps in from time to time, both musically and lyrically, add another dimension to the album and gives it a lot of substance.

While some of you out there may only be familiar with Bernie Torme’s work with Ian Gillan (in the Gillan band) and to some extent Ozzy Osbourne (when he toured with him back in the early ’80s), I strongly encourage to all Classic Hard Rock listeners out there to check out “BlackHeart” and simply lose themselves in its wild, strangely fascinating, and highly passionate musical delivery.
This is raw, organic and authentic Rock music that falls somewhere inbetween hard rock, sinister heavy blues and vintage psychedelic music, but at the same time it is something that simply cannot be classified easily.
As you can probably tell, I am having a hard time labeling or categorizing this stuff, but who the f@ck cares? The quality of the album speaks for itself.
Support Bernie Torme and buy this kick ass record!

01 – Golden Pig
02 – 1985 (Keeper Of The Flame)
03 – On Fire
04 – Better Days
05 – Snake In The Garden
06 – Flow
07 – Into The Sun
08 – Pain Song
09 – Dirt
10 – Steady Roller Blues
11 – Miles To Babylon
12 – Party’s Over

Bernie Tormé – vocals, guitar
Chris Heilmann – bass
Ian Harris – drums, percussion
Phil Spalding – additional vocals on tracks 3 & 7
Lisa Fury – additional vocals on tracks 9 & 12,
Rosa B (violin) & Simon Jeffrey (Bodhran) on track 11
Mike Freeland, Ian Harris, Chris Heilmann, Ilona Kasprzyk, Shane O’Neill – backing vocals
thanks to J. Nepper

PRE-ORDER:
www.bernietorme.co.uk/
.