WINGER – Seven (2023) *HQ*

In celebration of their 35 years as a touring and recording act, multi-platinum rockers WINGER will release their seventh studio album, the aptly titled “Seven” on May 5th via Frontiers Music. The 12-track album produced by founder, vocalist/bassist Kip Winger, it’s the band’s first new album since their 2014 release Better Days Comin’.
Winger is one of the only bands formed during the late ‘80s that still features all of their original members: Kip Winger, Reb Beach, Rod Morgenstein, and Paul Taylor. Guitarist John Roth was added in 1992.
To support the new album, Winger will partake in extensive touring, beginning with a UK tour with Steel Panther in May, followed by a U.S tour with the Tom Keifer Band in June. Additionally, the band will do a number of headline shows throughout the summer.
This one of the best albums of the year folks…

They certainly come out of their corner punching hard with “Proud Desperado,” as churning riffage sets the mood as Kip Winger tells of a character whose penchant for violence has swung around to claim him: “You’re losing blood, face down in mud … Bullets fall like rain / But nothing bleeds forever.” It’s a tremendous beginning, made even more remarkable when followed by “Heaven’s Falling,” which decreases the tempo and switches focus to matters of the heart. “Can we survive all that’s been said and done / Or has the end just begun?” Kip Winger sings, sounding weary but strong enough to ask the right questions. The huge chorus lifts the song, without hinting whether things will work out in the end.

Winger has always been a versatile bunch, equally adept at intricate, quasi-progressive pieces, fist-in-the-air anthems and time-stopping power balladry.
Both “It’s Okay” and “Tears of Blood” employ throwback elements to pull you in – the former, a talk-box-assisted main riff; the latter, a dry, distorted stomp. “It’s Okay” amps up the proceedings by having Winger and Beach trade off lead vocals; “Tears of Blood” does the same by sneakily transitioning from its primitive beginning into a dramatic chorus, with only a couple bars of a spooky guitar figure between them.

On “Do or Die” a shimmering acoustic guitar slides into a sledgehammer pre-chorus; likewise, a stop-time solo section yields smoothly back into a softer verse.
Nothing, though, quite prepares you for the album-closing “It All Comes Back Around,” an epic seven-plus minutes of dynamic shifts, from ethereal moments to blastoff choruses. Kip Winger’s voice gradually increases in intensity, then falls back, only to work its way back up again. Reb Beach also shines, his solos moving from long bent notes to super-fast runs. Throughout the long song, not a moment or note is wasted; all the sundry parts fit into making the greater whole.

It doesn’t matter whether you have a first-hand recollection of Winger’s MTV-abetted introduction to the popular consciousness 35 years ago or you’ve picked up the records they’ve made since emerging from exile at the turn of the millennium.
If you like potent hard rock and virtuosic playing, you owe it to yourself to check out ‘Seven’.
A MUST HAVE

01 – Proud Desperado
02 – Heaven’s Falling
03 – Tears of Blood
04 – Resurrect Me
05 – Voodoo Fire
06 – Broken Glass
07 – It’s Okay
08 – Stick the Knife in and Twist
09 – One Light to Burn
10 – Do or Die
11 – Time Bomb
12 – It All Comes Back Around

Kip Winger – lead vocals, bass, acoustic guitar, keyboards
Reb Beach – guitars, backing vocals, harmonica, keyboards
Rod Morgenstein – drums, percussion, backing vocals, piano
Paul Taylor – keyboards, guitars, backing vocals, piano
John Roth – guitars, backing vocals, bass, keyboards

Pre order:
www.amazon.co.uk/Seven-Winger/dp/B0BVTLQYSR