Artist: Ace Frehley
Title: Anomaly
Type: Album
Label: Bronx Born Records / Season Of Mist

Ace was always a hero of mine during my teenage years, as I did, and still do, adore Kiss, in fact I have a framed photo of Ace on the wall in my home! Laugh, scoff, do what you will. Anyway, Ace has been releasing solo albums since the late-1980’s, each has had its moments, classic songs here and there, such as some on ‘Second Sighting’. Bring Ace forward to 2009; he has gracefully managed to stay away from the remaining members of Kiss’ motor-mouthed comments in the media of late. I always thought that he produced the best album out of the four solo albums anyway; true music talent will shine through! Released on Ace’s own records label and I-Tunes, this album breaks a 20-year gap from one of the masters of the Les Paul fretboard.

From the opening track ‘Foxy & Free’ you can instantly tell that he has not changed his style or apologised for not doing so. This is Ace Frehley pure and simple. A simple analogy – like early Kiss – you will like Ace Frehley’s solo records! Plenty of rock and roll riffs and blues based solos etc, Ace is majestically rocking out instead of being close to claiming his bus pass. Continuing in true fashion of his Kiss-altar-ego (Spaceman), ‘Outer Space’ soothes along and gets very blues heavy and simply flows with the ease and in fact I reckon some of the stoner rock fans would find favour with this tune, it’s got a very earthy guitar tone and one of the collaboration efforts on this new disc. Some of the guitar riffs and solos you do however think that he has used them before, or maybe it’s just because they sound like a classic riff or lick? Ace always had a unique singing voice, whilst not the greatest range in the world; it certainly does the job for this album. ‘Fox on the Run’ is a cover of UK Glam Rockers The Sweet, a cool rendition, but you cannot take away the joy of the original version, but the solo and riffs are very much Ace’s. There are a few hits and misses on this album, as there are with a lot of albums, but on the whole, I could go on forever about this album, but restrain myself, I am happy in the fact that this legend is still releasing cool albums after so many years. The instrumental ‘Fractured Quantum’ finishes off the album rather sedately, unless you have the I-tunes version then you get an additional track (‘The Return of Space Bear’).

Ace pulls it off again and produces another fine slab of rock and roll, I for one wouldn’t want him to change his style at all, soaked in nostalgia and timeless classics picked up from throughout his career, ‘Anomaly’ brings Ace back into the media spotlight and one hopes that things will go better for him this time around, we don’t want to wait another 20 years! ‘Anomaly’ has that classic 1970’s hard rock and roll that we have associated with this man for years.

http://www.myspace.com/acefrehley

Paul Maddison

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