KROKUS – Heart Attack [Metal Mind Records remastered digipak]

“Heart Attack” is the tenth studio album by the Swiss hard rockers KROKUS, the band’s first for American MCA Records and recorded in L.A. with renowned producer Michael Wagener behind the desk. The album saw the return of original Krokus founding member, bassist Chris von Rohr who also contributes piano and percussion
Requested by one of you, as far I know, this is the only remaster available of Krokus’ “Heart Attack”, done by Metal Mind Records, housed in a cool digipak, a limited edition to numerated 2000 copies, digitally remastered using 24-Bit process on golden disc.

While recorded in the US, and year was 1987, “Heart Attack” wasn’t Krokus-go-slick to arena ready choruses. Instead, it was an attempt to re-capture the band’s sound.
The band negotiated a deal with MCA Records, that would let them keep greater creative control, and it is realized in a much heavier and all-round kickass album that showed the band still had grapes.
In addition, Chris von Rohr returned, with whom they had penned ‘Hardware’ and ‘One Vice’ helped the band get back to its roots, and ended up resulting in the album being its heaviest offering since the phenomenal ‘Headhunter’.

While opener ‘Everybody Rocks’ has a catchiness and a commercial riff quite similar to Def Leppard circa 1983, follower ‘Wild Love’ is a powerful midtempo heavy track bringing to mind Krokus’ finest hour.
But even more heavy is the killer metal attack of ‘Axx Attack’, which gets things closer to Accept or Judas Priest. Right away we have much more metal subject matter and song title, as well as an awesome thundering feel in the rhythm section, which in the chorus, when coupled with Storace’s outlandish screams, really sounds like Judas Priest. This one is just pure, aggressive heavy metal through and through, with a solo that is reminiscent of Glen Tipton, and K.K. Downings work, very shredding and utterly aggressive.

It seems as though Krokus wanted to write their heaviest song since ‘Headhunter’ to prove to their loyal fans they weren’t sellouts and were still a metal band at heart; it worked.

At times, they still have that AC/DC feel though, but thanks to Wagener production, in fact it sounds like Def Leppard circa Pyromania. The intro and guitar tone of ‘Shoot Down the Night’ establishes this straight away, and this feel continues right through the whole song. The production job on this one is very heavy and massive.
Then you have a big midtempo in ‘Bad, Bad Girl’, whuch is not a ballad bt slow things creating atmosphere.

The attempt at re-connecting with their roots is obvious – not only their early guitarist Rohr, but re-recording a version of ‘Winning Man’ from their 1981 album ‘Hardware’ and using a mixture of material that includes melodic metal attacks, and massive bombastic anthems like ‘Let it Go’ which are absolutely great examples of their classic sound. Their knack for crafting these anthems is incredible, and this song has an amazing hook you can’t help but sing along to.

Rarely mentioned by Krokus fans as favorite – even less by ’80s hard rock fans – “Heart Attack” is in fact one of the strongest efforts. At places it brings to mind their masterpiece ‘Headhunter’ in terms of songwriting quality.
Though it was hard for the band to capitalize commercially on this record due to the explosion of gammy melodic hard rock in the US, this album impressed long-time fans, and slayed all other hard rock in its path.
Very hard to find and expensive, rare release of this underrated rockin’ album, one with a polished, Americanized sound production but classic Krokus’ bite.
Highly Recommended

You’ve seen it first here, at 0dayrox

01 – Everybody Rocks
02 – Wild Love
03 – Let It Go
04 – Winning Man
05 – Axx Attack
06 – Rock N Roll Tonight
07 – Flyin’ High
08 – Shoot Down The Night
09 – Bad, Bad Girl
10 – Speed Up

Marc Storace – vocals
Fernando von Arb – lead and rhythm guitar, piano
Mark Kohler – rhythm and lead guitar
Chris von Rohr – bass, piano, percussion
Dani Crivelli – drums
produced & mixed by Michael Wagener at The Enterprise, LA, Ca.

BUY IT
www.wizard.bg/main.php?page=shop&section=article&mid=16036
.