Paul Rodgers - Midnight Rose (2023) review

 Midnight Rose - Paul Rodgers

Sun Records (Released: September 22nd, 2023)

Available on Vinyl LP and CD

1. "Coming Home"
2. "Photo Shooter"
3. "Midnight Rose"
4. "Living It Up"
5. "Dance in the Sun"
6. "Take Love"
7. "Highway Robber"
8. "Melting"

'Voice' needs better songs.

It has to be said that despite all the touring Paul has done over the years, his solo career, as a recording artist, is sparse. If we remove all the 'live' albums ('Loreley', 'Glasgow', 'Montreux', 'Free Spirit' and others like the 'concert live' releases) we cut his output by pretty much two thirds. Then if we remove albums of covers, 'Muddy Water Blues' and 'The Royal Sessions' we are actually left with only four solo albums released between 1983 and 2023. That's four albums in forty years! It's true to say Paul has NOT been lazy. We've had Bad Company in various guises during this period, The Firm, and of course Queen, but four albums in forty years is pretty much unprecedented I'd say. Those we are left with are 'Cut Loose' (1983) 5/10, 'Now' (1997) 8/10, 'Electric' (1999) 5/10, and finally after 24 years 'Midnight Rose' (2023). There are some great 'moments' on the prior three. 'Live In Peace' from 1983, is an example, and re-imagined beautifully by The Firm, but it's only really 'Now' that stands up as something I'd go back and play. It could use a better mix, but it's a pretty solid album. What lets the others down generally isn't the performances, it's the songs. 'Now' has a much better balance than anything else here, but even that isn't without some filler. However, if you can pick up the Japanese release, with the two extra songs, it's a strong collection, and the best thing Paul has done, with what I also consider the best band he has ever had over all his solo term, albums and touring.

So given the 24 year gap between the sub-par 'Electric' and this, you might expect an album that contains NO filler at all. 24 years should provide enough time for an abundance of great material... Or maybe not. Over the years Paul has sometimes sprinkled the odd new song into a show. 'War Boys', 'Far Distant Shore' and 'Lift Your Glass' popped up around 2006, none of them are here, but 'Highway Robber' goes back to Bad Company in 1974. There are two very good versions of it recorded by them, and it was in fact put forward for the 'Straight Shooter' reissue, but Paul vetoed it. 'Take Love' goes back to Queen, where it was performed 'live' in 2006, and I understand recorded for 'The Cosmos Rocks' (2008), though it wasn't used. I seem to recall 'Photo Shooter' goes back quite a way too, as Paul has played this in the past with Howard Leese and Todd Ronning from what I remember. So a selection of songs from quite a long period. The best of the best?

Well this album cuts out at 30 minutes, and only eight songs. By today's standards it's short. I don't really mind that, as Paul has worked with the LP in mind. He loves his vinyl. However, I can't say if the vinyl for this album is all analogue to pressing (AAA), but I can say the digital version provided for review sounds a bit squashed. Produced by Bob Rock, you can hear his 80s pedigree. Great drum sounds, everything well recorded, but getting 'everything' on here is part of the problem, and some of the mixes could be better. Also given production credits are Cynthia Rodgers and bassist Todd Ronning. Really? Too many cooks and all that... It might explain some of the problems maybe... I assume the drummer is Rick Fedyk, (both he and Ronning get a writing credit for 'Living It Up'), but in the press blurb no guitar player/s are mentioned. Howard Leese? More than one guy? I don't know.

Straight in, and 'Comin Home' reminds me a little bit of 'Cut Loose' but it's so dense. Every gap, as we move into the song a bit, is filled with random guitar licks, which actually don't add anything. The arrangement is pretty good, and Paul sounds great. No issues there at all. Time has done nothing to wither this man's voice. He sounds like he's in his twenties! Nice middle eight here, which breaks the song up, and punches out of the heavier tempo for a bit. So far, okay. The guitar solo seems to come from a number of different chopped up takes, audibly so, and doesn't really lift the song, or go anywhere sadly. Not great, but it's one of the better tracks here. I can understand why it opens the album.

'Photo Shooter' sounds like a cross between The Firm & The Law. Clunky lyric and guitar riffola filling every gap between the vocal performance lines. Very cluttered. The slide guitar is a nice touch, but it's everywhere like a rash. I'm sure I can hear someone playing the kitchen sink here. Verse, chorus, verse, chorus, nice enough guitar solo, back to the chorus. No real dynamics. It's like being on a mid-tempo runaway train, balls to the wall, flat out all the way. No subtly on show here, thick black lines, no shading. Okay, but really a bit of a b-side.

'Midnight Rose', the title track, is again, okay. Not the best lyric (lots of 'not alone' repeats, and the same verse three times), but nice piano and slide guitar. Howard on mandolin I guess. Another song and arrangement that really just doesn't go anywhere. No climax, no crescendo, no build up, verse, chorus, verse, chorus. Very basic stuff. The vocal is a bit too loud in the mix as well.

'Living It Up' has a pseudo-Hendrix feel, including the best guitar playing on the album, with lots of Frank Marino type licks. Great solo tone too. I understand what Paul is trying to put across here, but it's another clunky lyric (he's 'not alone' again....) This would likely kick ass 'live', especially as an opener, and I can see why this was the first thing released for public consumption when the album was announced. Seems like more time was taken with this. The arrangement actually has some dynamics, some really nice drum and bass touches in there. Also the song does feel like it's going somewhere as it moves through the changes. The best track so far.

                                                         Photo Ó Victory Tischler-Blue

'Dance In The Sun', is 'Midnight Rose' with a flamenco (ish) guitar filling every gap. This isn't a great song despite some nice moments in the arrangement (some great drum parts). There are guitar fills everywhere, and they suffocate the song. Where there isn't guitar (even sometimes where there is) there are superfluous wailing backing vocals.

'Take Love', is another electro-acoustic type song (think 'Radioactive'). Seems to me most of this album was written acoustically. Like the previous song, too much female wailing going on for me. The Queen version of this was pretty good, but immediately here there's those random guitar fills everywhere again. So far there are four out of the eight songs that work out pretty much the same. Verse, chorus, verse, chorus... Where is the middle eight? A bridge? A key change? Some kind of dynamics other than dropping the band out for a couple of lines? What saves this is Paul's vocal. He sounds great here, but that endless arbitrary guitar just wears me out. Cramming every space in the audio field makes the album a tiring listen.

'Highway Robber' isn't as good as the Bad Company version, period. It was interesting coming from that time, and perfect for the 'Straight Shooter' reissue a few years ago as an unreleased song. Unreleased because it wasn't as strong as the other material there at the time. Good, but not great. For that, 'See The Sunlight' and 'All Night Long', from the same period, showed how much material Bad Company were turning over at that moment. Remember then they were also using non-album b-sides like 'Little Miss Fortune' and 'Whiskey Bottle'. An over abundance of material meant they could be selective to what was used where, and what was NOT used, something I don't think was the case with this album! This is the longest cut on 'Midnight Rose' at just over five minutes... It seems like ten!

'Melting', the final cut, is actually my favourite song from the record by FAR. It moves in a different way to anything else on here, and in fact this could have been from 'Muddy Water Blues' or even 'Now'. While there is still too much indiscriminate solo guitar 'filling' going on in places, it's not so exhausting here. I think this is a great song. It has a fantastic vocal performance, and the best lyric on the record too. In fact all the players here sound very fine. It's a refined performance by all involved. It also breaks, what Michael Heatley rightly refers to as the "relentless transatlantic rock backing", in his 'Record Collector' magazine review (2/5 Stars). I'm reminded a little bit of 'Voodoo' on the Queen album. Not that it sounds the same, but that it's the highlight of an otherwise pretty run of the mill set of songs. Music by numbers, or going through the motions. Call the rest of it what you will.

So, eight songs, but only three that really appeal to me personally, one if I get really harsh, and honestly, four here don't really work for me at all. 30 minutes is enough. Surely Paul has better songs than this? We needed much more material of the calibre of the final song, and less 'Photo Shooter', 'Midnight Rose', 'Dance in The Sun', verse chorus repeat. The production overall is a bit exhausting, (or rather it's the mixes) but in fact, if asked who I thought could produce Paul, Bob Rock (Metallica, Bon Jovi, Tragically Hip) would have been on my list, top 3, along with Kevin Shirley (Baby Animals, Black Crowes, Joe Bonamassa) and John Custer (Cry Of Love, Automatic Slim, Dag). However, Bob needed to reign it in a bit, pull the band (guitarist) back, and perhaps listen to some of the Free stuff to get a feel for Paul, as much of this is too frilly and jumbled. It needed a bit more restraint, and some more work on the majority of the song arrangements. There's no room for any of the music to breathe at all. Far too much going on in such undemanding songs, or maybe that's why there's so much crammed in there! Trying to make things sound better than they actually are. Much on show here is pretty basic, rudimentary songwriting, very linear, and there is little done to elevate to songs, to lift them, and make them fly.

Having said all of that, I think generally fans of Paul will be getting what they want, and anticipate. I wasn't really surprised by anything here. It was all pretty much as expected. Great vocals, some decent band performances, but a lack of really great songs. Of the record, Paul himself has said "My new album 'Midnight Rose' grew from sparks of ideas I had, The sparks developed into a raging fire when the band and everyone involved brought their absolute 'A' game. I think it is my best album to date, I like it. I hope you do too."

In fact this album sits behind 'Now' for me. It's a 6/10, and I have to wonder what happened to the guy who wrote some of my favourite songs, and lyrics. However, Paul is 74 in December, and he's already said there are no current plans to tour with this record. I'm sure that will disappoint a lot of people, but that may change if he needs to scratch the itch. But you know what, he's living happily in Canada with Cynthia, and his catalogue with Free and Bad Company speaks for itself. This might not be something I'm going to play endlessly (or much at all), but the man has done enough, and at this stage I'm grateful for the bits here I do like as additions to his very considerable cannon. This isn't a bad album, it's just not as good as it should be for someone like Paul Rodgers. The expectation should he high after so long, and this just doesn't deliver. He's better than this, but having not done any proper solo recording for so long, and seemingly not an awful lot of song writing for a while from the sound of material on offer here, the lack of that kind of activity shows in the finished result, which is generally okay, but rarely great.

 

David Clayton

Free Appreciation Society

September 2023.

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Other voices below...

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Paul Rodgers

Midnight Rose

Two stars/five

Sun 5047806263 (CD, LP)

Nice voice, shame about the songs

Rock god Rodgers needs no introduction, and his vocal chops remain enviable at age 73. Midnight Rose breaks a 25-year silence in terms of original solo material but has a “lockdown project” vibe, vocals somehow detached from a relentless transatlantic rock backing. Sun Records labelmate Ian Hunter could teach him a thing or two about dynamics, if not singing

It’s no coincidence that Paul’s most recent work has focused on songs by Muddy Waters, the Stax R&B stable and a revisit to his Free heyday. There’s nothing here to approach that calibre of material, the autobiographical 'Live It Up' and Bad Company-reminiscent 'Highway Robber' the relative highlights. Since Rodgers is now a naturalised Canadian, maybe a phone call to Bryan Adams next time?

Michael Heatley

(Record Collector)