KINGDOM COME – Kingdom Come [Bad Reputation Records remaster +5]

French reissue label Bad Reputation has been doing a great job releasing ‘Collector Series / Remastered with Bonus‘, with the main attraction being the addition of hard to find extra material, making these reissues the ‘definitive expanded versions’. In a Rock Candy Records fashion, these are official remasters in arrangement with the original recording companies.
KINGDOM COME‘s most successful album, their self-titled debut, has been graced with a Bad Reputation remastering with the addition of 4 hard to find extra tracks as bonus, and we added an extra.

“Kingdom Come” released their well-received, self-titled debut album appeared in early 1988. Led by German born frontman Lenny Wolf who co-wrote most of the album’s material with the group’s manager Marty Wolff, the band scored their most popular and best-selling album right out of the gate.

After the band’s lead single generated tremendous buzz well ahead of the album release, Kingdom Come went gold on the same day it was put on sale, and eventually Platinum status in the United States, Germany and Canada and peaked at #12 on the U.S. general Album charts.

Part of the initial attraction (and later critique) of the band was their audio likeness to classic-era Led Zeppelin. Most of that comparison is predicated on Wolf’s vocal resemblance to Robert Plant. In fact his timbre is often remarkably similar. He also shares Plant’s ability to shift his tone suddenly from teasingly sultry to pyrotechnic.

However, outside the vocals, the Kingdom Come-Led Zep comparison crumbles. Sure, there’s a couple of tracks with a Zeppelin-esque vibe, but which band has not been influenced by these Rock ‘n Roll legends?
Lenny Wolf & Co. have said: “Led Zeppelin was not any of the band members favorite band”. And listening the entire disc, the material and the sound proves it.
Wolf comes from an European AOR background with his band Stone Fury (two really good records), and the same can be said from the rest of the guys.

The album was co-produced by Bob Rock (Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, Mötley Crüe) who forged a crisp and solid rock sound at Little Mountain studio in Vancouver and mixed it at the famous Electric Lady studios in New York City.
This Bad Reputation remaster is really good, on par with the Japanese, just a little more high on the mid-frequencies.

Of special interest are the bonus tracks, all single B-sides impossible to find.
There’s the rocking ‘Helping Hand’ driven by a hot riff, and then flip sides from singles of the band’s second album: the groovy midtempo ‘Slow Down’, a great live recording of ”The Perfect O’ (where they sound like Whitesnake Slip Of The Tongue era), and ‘The Wind (Live)’.

To make it more interesting, we have added as extra bonus ‘Get It On (US 12′ Promo Version)’, a rare and really different mix of this song, taken from the out of print remastered Lemon Recordings reissue from some years ago.
This is the definitive version of “Kingdom Come” – first seen at 0dayrox.

01 – Living Out Of Touch
02 – Pushin’ Hard
03 – What Love Can Be
04 – 17
05 – The Shuffle
06 – Get It On
07 – Now Forever After
08 – Hideaway
09 – Loving You
10 – Shout It Out
BONUS TRACKS:
11 – Helping Hand [B-side]
12 – Slow Down [B-side]
13 – The Perfect O (Live) [B-side]
14 – The Wind (Live) [B-side]
0dayrox Extra:
15 – Get It On (US 12′ Promo Version)

Lenny Wolf – lead vocals
Danny Stag – lead guitar
Rick Steier – rhythm guitar
Johnny B. Frank – bass
James Kottak – drums

BUY
badreputation.fr/ARTISTS/-KINGDOM-COME