Tony Harnell and the Mercury Train-Round Trip

Frontiers
2010

If I made a list of bands I like that few others seemed to like than it's quite possible that TNT would be high on the list. I have been a fan since 1985 and although a number of their album I have been uneven there was still something about them that always drew me in. Their biggest selling point to my ears was the vocals of Tony Harnell when he was in the band. At times his voice could be over the top even way up there, but still his range was always an attention getter for me. When I heard he was doing an album of re-recorded songs from his previous bands I was highly skeptical. For the most part re-recording don't seem to add much to songs. In this case the songs are given either acoustic treatment, a modern style upgrade or some of both. The results are varied although largely on the positive side. Something the way too stripped down "Satellite" and the tedious version "Ready to fly" had me glazing over about two minutes in, but it dragged on for almost another three minutes. On the other hand "When I'm away" and "Anywhere but here" are prefect fits for Tony's voice and he makes the best of them. I was initially very skeptical when I saw that "Intuition" from the TNT's 1989 release of the same name would get the upgrade treatment. Indeed the first few seconds were kind of shocking because this was one of my favorites of TNT's rocking type songs. However they nailed it as they kept the upbeat feel, but added more texture and it's a good example of the fact that in many ways Tony Harnell sounds better now than he did in the 1980's. I think this is due to some fine control over his voice that he has developed over the years. There are a few misses on the album, but mostly it's a fine showcase for Harnell as a vocalist and a writer. Ultimately this turned out to be one of the most pleasant surprises on the year so far.