JK Northrup-Wired in my skin

Alien Records
2007



This is an album from veteran guitarist JK Northrup who had previously played with Northrup, King Kobra, XYZ and others in his 25 plus year long music career. Because he has played with so many different acts he knows a lot of people so he brought in several vocalists for this project including Kelly Keeling (Blue Murder, MSG, Baton Rouge, Trans Siberian Orchestra), Johnny Edwards (Montrose, Foreigner, Royal Jelly, King Kobra), Ted Poley (Danger Danger), Terry Ilous (XYZ, I.R.S.) and newcomer vocalist David Zaragoza (Category 7). There are eleven tracks total here including three instrumentals. Largely it's typical but smooth hard rock with most the majority of the tracks sounding like they could have been recorded between say 1989 and 1991 as they thrive on large melodies and high production values. Using so many vocalists is a little bit of a double edged sword as it allows the album to have some different sounds because the singers have somewhat different styles and ranges yet the album has a whole doesn't quite feel like a unit because of this approach. However that's probably minor because I enjoyed most of the songs as individual tracks. I think the pacing was right on for the most part despite having so many hands or voices in the mix, I would say it was a fairly tight album. The only song I wasn't huge on was "If I were James Taylor I could finish this song" which felt very awkward to me. The instrumentals allow JK a little room to spread out and roam a little more with his riffs and these three tracks tended to be some of the heavier ones on the album. Overall this was a fairly ambitious project and mainly it succeeded in pulling me in. I just wish that I had discovered it a little sooner.





http://www.jknorthrup.com/
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