MARYANN COTTON – Into Eternity (2015)
If you were following this blog from some time now, you should have seen the debut CD of MARYANN COTTON a couple years ago. Now the rockers from Denmark are releasing “Into Eternity“, their sophomore effort.
For the initiated, Maryann Cotton is the pseudonym of young singer Jackie Patino, son of of Hal Patino, the fairly famous Scandinavian bassist from who has been in King Diamond, Force Of Evil and Pretty Maids.
Jackie wanted a classic rock character (like Alice Cooper) to develop his love for ’70s and ’80s shock hard rock, and took his name from a disturbed British woman who killed over 20 people in London back in the 1850. Mary Ann Cotton was found guilty of poisoning many people including various lovers and husbands. She was convicted and hung in 1873 at the age of 40. Creepy!
But MARYANN COTTON is band, a rocking unit. While the band’s debut featuring a lot of Danish well known musicians a s guests, now the group is firmly established as a quartet.
What has not changed is Maryann Cotton’s sound; classic Hard Rock and a huge retro vibe. The style deriving from their performance is vintage, flirting with the ’70s and ’80s but with a modern updated sound.
Maryann / Jackie sings like a young Alice Cooper, both in the phrasing and timbre, while the music and arrangements are close to Alice as well, peppered with some Eighties US hair metal on some tracks.
The songs have an underlying current of malice related to shock rock but also play so well with melodious hard rock conventions like cowbells, lots of sound-effects, fake cheering added in the background, and more.
If you listen carefully you can find as well bits of Kiss (‘What She Wants’), Queen and Meatloaf scattered in the album.
The very mid-Eighties Alice Cooper-like ‘Had Enough’ is one of the best cuts, as the very melodic midtempo ‘When Tomorrow Comes’, then ‘Gangland’ adds a glammy groove and a crazy 007/Bond middle part, and ‘No Whish Upon No Star’ is the fine power ballad (akin Aerosmith).
With “Into Eternity” Maryann Cotton continues the revive of the lost days of theatrical, shocking hard rock, and they are pretty good at that.
Jackie Patino graces his ‘Maryann Cotton’ character with multi-faceted and multi-dimensional vocals – not in the sense of wide range or power – just in the way this kind of material needs; sometimes sings, sometimes whispers, sometimes croons, always in a precise retro fashion. The guys in band (including experienced dad Hal Patino on bass) help to create the retro vibe without sounding outdated.
Production is very good, there is a lot going on in this music, it’s very polished and crafted to create the spooky atmosphere.
Another very interesting Maryann Cotton release framed into the almost disappeared shock rock, with a 2015 updated sound but containing all the roots from the famous ’70s and ’80s bands in this genre.
Really well done.
01 – What She Wants
02 – Had Enough
03 – My Gun
04 – Hard Lost’ n Fried
05 – Gangland
06 – When Tomorrow Comes
07 – Keepers of the Holy Grail
08 – Into Eternity
09 – Death Is Beauty
10 – No Whish Upon No Star
Maryann Cotton (Jackie Patino) – Vocals
Hal Patino – Bass
Sebastian Sly – Guitars
Shawn Kernon – Drums
BUY IT !
www.amazon.de/Into-Eternity-Maryann-Cotton/dp/B016VJM6TG
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