Giant - III

Year of Release: 2001
Label: Frontiers
Catalog Number: FR CD 097
Format: CD
Total Time: 44:45:00

Don't wake the sleeping Giant!? Uh-Oh! Too late dude... the Huff Brothers are back and their third CD will simply crush all competition when it comes to melodic album of the year. This is without a doubt one of the highlights of the year, even if the music dates back to some ten years ago.

The previous two albums, Last Of The Runaways (1989) and Time To Burn (1991) are considered to be classics among the fans of melodic hard rock. As mentioned before, this is not a new CD with new material. It's more of a compilation of leftovers from the previous two. But as long as the song material is this good, who gives a damn? The production is great, as always when Dann Huff is involved. And he may actually be more recognised for his work as Megadeth's producer than lead singer for Giant in these metal days? The instrumental guitar intro "Combustion" opens up the album with a similar sound to "I'm A Believer" from the debut album before the whole shebang kicks off with "You Will Be Mine." A really marvelous track with a catchy chorus that once and for all proves that Giant are back with a bang. The downside would be, with only ten songs, is that this CD is a bit too short for today's standard. Especially since one of them is a short guitar intro and another ("Bad Case Of Loving You - Doctor, Doctor") is a pretty boring cover song and a third ("Don't Leave Me In Love") was already covered by Mark Spiro in the past. Then again, this version of "Don't Leave Me In Love" is way better than Spiro's and they wrote it for the third Giant album in the first case anyway. "Oh Yeah" has one of those catchy Def Leppard sing-a-long choruses and "Can't Let Go" is yet another sentimental ballad by the Huff-ster.

Bottomline: Fans of catchy AOR or Giant fans from the past simply can't ignore this release even if one or two more tracks wouldn't have been all that bad. Let's hope for a completely new album by these guys next year, huh?

[This review originally appeared November 2002 at the ProgPower Online review site -ed.]
Tracklisting:
Combustion / You Will Be Mine / Over You / Don't Leave Me In Love / Love Can't Help You Now / The Sky Is The Limit / It's Not The End Of The World / Oh Yeah / Can't Let Go / Bad Case Of Loving You (Doctor, Doctor)

Musicians:
Mike Brignardello - bass, vocals
Dann Huff - guitar, keyboards, vocals
David Lyndon Huff - drums, percussion, vocals
Robert White Johnson - vocals

Guests:

Mark Spiro - background vocals
Terry Thomas - background vocals

Discography:
Last Of The Runaways (1989)
Live (1991)
Time To Burn (1991)
III (2001)
Live And Acoustic (2003)

Genre: Melodic Rock-AOR

Origin US

Added: December 18th 2004
Reviewer: Urban Wally Walstrom
Score:
Artist website:
Hits: 2354
Language: english