CONEY HATCH – Postcard from Germany (2023)
Canadian cult hard rockers CONEY HATCH proudly present their first ever live album “Postcard from Germany“, to be released by CleoRecs next Friday. While the band released the excellent ‘”Live at the Mocambo” (featured in exclusive at 0dayrox) a couple years ago, it was a limited edition managed by themselves.
“Postcard from Germany” is the first CONEY HATCH live album released through a record label and to be distributed world-wide. Includes two brand new studio recordings as well, the first the band has made in almost 10 years!
Back in its ’80s heyday, Coney Hatch toured extensively with everyone from Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Peter Frampton, Cheap Trick and many more, and established themselves as one of Canada’s prime hard rock acts from the era.
If you’re going to tag a couple of new numbers onto a classic songs live record they need to be great and the live record itself needs to be essential.
Here we get a couple of more than decent songs (in fact these are great!) – the wonderfully Melodic Pop rocker ‘It’s About a Girl’ and the broodier ‘Heaven’s on the Other Side’ which has an early Def Leppard feel and is equally as cool.
The live section is a great setlist but if I’m honest not the greatest live album you’ll hear. The mix is rather middle heavy at times with backing vocals sometimes higher than the lead vocal of Carl Dixon. Andy Curran also takes 5 of the lead vocals and also seems to have lost little sonically over the years.
For me though it’s song selection that misses a few tricks (Yes I know it’s Festival set) – things like the first Top 20 hit in ‘Hey Operator’ and the gritty ‘I’ll Do the Talkin” from the first record. Instead we get the somewhat tepid ‘Blown Away’ from ‘Four’ and the even more lukewarm ‘Boys Club’ from the same album.
That aside it’s all there with all the best from those first three classics with numbers from ‘Friction’ sounding particularly impressive. As an introduction to the band I’d still recommend checking out those first three records but for fans the lure of the live album just might swaay yu to put the hand in the pocket for this one.
For us ‘Live at the Mocambo’ is better both in sound and sound selection but heck, ”Postcard from Germany” is great too: this is pure rock n’ roll / hard rock with that killer ’80s feel, and Coney Hatch are intact and hot.
Highly Recommended
1 – It’s About a Girl (New Studio Track)
2 – Heaven’s on the Other Side (New Studio Track)
3 – We Got the Night (Live)
4 – Stand Up (Live)
5 – Blown Away (Live)
6 – Boys Club (Live)
7 – She’s Gone (Live)
8 – This Ain’t Love (Live)
9 – Wrong Side of Town (Live)
10 – Girl from Last Night’s Dream (Live)
11 – Fantasy (Live)
12 – Fallen Angel (Live)
13 – Don’t Say Make Me (Live)
14 – Devil’s Deck (Live)
15 – Monkey Bars (Live)
Carl Dixon – lead vocals, rhythm guitar
Andy Curran – bass guitar, vocals
Dave Ketchum – drums
Sean Kelly – guitar
Pre order:
cleorecs.com/store/shop/coney-hatch-postcard-from-germany-cd/
