Thursday, May 7, 2015

Album Spotlight: Europe: War of Kings

I will freely admit that Europe fell off my radar after their sports stadium classic "The Final Countdown" ran its mainstream course. Sure the album of the same name had some other minor hits with "Carrie", "Rock the Night" and "Cherokee".  The album The Final Countdown and the songs from it never did that much for me. So I dismissed the band.

Fast forward almost 30 years and combine my rekindled love of discovering new music with Europe's March 2015 release of War of Kings and it's like I discovered a new band.

Europe the band is very popular in Europe the continent. And hugely popular in their native Sweden. It's a shame that mainstream radio in the United States has abandoned any and all good music for the sake of chasing the whims of 14 year olds. But I digress.

War of Kings is an epic album. And it's very European. With influences such as Deep Purple, Ronnie James Dio era Rainbow and Whitesnake shining through.

This record was also produced by Dave Cobb. Why is that significant? Only because he has produced some of my favorite recent albums from Whiskey Myers to Chris Stapleton.

I made the mistake of dismissing artists based on their past. Don't do that. You will miss gems like this.

Here is a track from War of Kings. Not released as single, but is so good.

3 comments:

  1. I totally forgot to leave a comment last week! Thanks for always linking up!! :)

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  2. Have you ever heard anything off Wings of Tomorrow? A Belgian metalhead friend introduced me to that and I really enjoyed it.

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    1. I had not heard it before, but now everything makes perfect sense. Europe's new stuff is rooted in who they are. I don't begrudge them for taking advantage of the mid 80s market. And the songs weren't bad, just not my cup of tea. Kudos to your Belgian friend, I would have never known otherwise as I'm trying to look forward and not back.

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