{"id":101998,"date":"2023-11-24T00:00:02","date_gmt":"2023-11-24T00:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=101998"},"modified":"2023-12-06T11:51:45","modified_gmt":"2023-12-06T11:51:45","slug":"album-review-high-spirits-safe-on-the-other-side","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-high-spirits-safe-on-the-other-side\/","title":{"rendered":"HIGH SPIRITS – Safe On The Other Side (2023) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

HIGH SPIRITS
Safe On The Other Side<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nHigh Roller (2023)<\/span>
Rating: 5\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Right, let\u2019s cut to the chase, the first track (\u2018In The Moonlight\u2019) on this album sounds like The Hellacopters tune \u2018Soulseller\u2019. Okay, so now I\u2019ve got that out of the way let\u2019s concentrate on the rest.<\/p>\n

Safe On The Other Side<\/em> is the fifth full-length release from the Chicago, Illinois-based combo that\u2019s been floating around since 2009, and as with all their releases \u2013 being the brainchild of Chris Black \u2013 High Spirits serve up driving hard rock which I actually find rather dull. Yep, I\u2019m about to get lynched by the fans, but as this record unravels I\u2019m rarely moved. This is standard, and yes, soulful too, with hints of New Wave Of British Heavy Metal and plenty of catchy hooks, but am I missing something? For me, this record is a middle of the road experience that does little to excite and after the first few tracks I just got bored.<\/p>\n

I rarely look at reviews from other sources, but I decided to have a scroll through a few after I listened to the album just to see what people were saying. Indeed, a majority of reviews were in high praise for Chris Black and so I put the album on several times and yet I remained numb to its alleged delights.<\/p>\n

Admittedly, I quite liked the moody plods of \u2018Lonely Nights\u2019 and \u2018(There Will Be) Magic Tonight\u2019, and \u2018Anything You Need\u2019 boasts a fizz, but there is nothing here that soars beyond the average as \u2018Please Don\u2019t Leave Me Behind\u2019, \u2018Til The End Of Time\u2019 and \u2018Loving You\u2019 blandly rattle away bereft of variety. It\u2019s like hearing the support band for Foo Fighters who I\u2019m sure would no doubt appeal to the uncles in the crowd. I\u2019ve seen people describe High Spirits as high energy rock, but all I hear is mediocrity.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HIGH SPIRITSSafe On The Other Side High Roller (2023)Rating: 5\/10 Right, let\u2019s cut to the chase, the first track (\u2018In The Moonlight\u2019) on this album sounds like The Hellacopters tune \u2018Soulseller\u2019. Okay, so now I\u2019ve got that out of the way let\u2019s concentrate on the rest. Safe On The Other Side is the fifth full-length […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,5530],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-high-spirits"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101998"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101999,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101998\/revisions\/101999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}