Search - Andersen, Laine, Readman Project :: Three

3.5 stars - Why not call it Royal Hunt?

Justin Gaines | Northern Virginia | 12/02/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I really had high hopes for this one, and was expecting something at least close to the Jorn Lande/Russell Allen collaboration The Battle. Even though I lost interest in Andre Andersen's main band Royal Hunt a few albums ago, I still think he's a talented songwriter and was interested to see what he'd put together for such high-caliber vocalists as Paul Laine (Danger Danger) and David Readman (Pink Cream 69). Readman, incidentally, is probably the best melodic rock vocalist I've heard since Andersen's former Royal Hunt singer DC Cooper.



While this was originally billed as a straightforward melodic rock album, it sounds quite similar to the average Royal Hunt album, though at just 36 minutes total, the songs on III are about half as long as the average Royal Hunt track. It's very much a keyboard based album, which is about what you'd expect based on all of Andersen's previous works. Ditto for the background vocals, which are very typical of the later Royal Hunt albums.



If Andersen had stretched himself a bit, he might have been able to come up with some truly memorable songs that took advantage of the vocalists at his disposal here. When you have access to vocalists of Laine and especially Readman's talents, you need to do a lot better than your average Royal Hunt songwriting. Laine did a good job with what he was given, and Readman's performance is as electrifying as ever, but the singers' performances are really the only remarkable thing about this album.



In the end, III is an average melodic rock album featuring two above average vocalists. Buy it only if you're a serious Royal Hunt fan or a serious David Readman fan."