CD review RED DRAGON CARTEL "Red dragon cartel"

(7/10) To my surprise Jake E. Lee is back in business. Most of you know the guitarist from his time when he played in Ozzy Osbourne's band and in Badlands.

The new band of Lee is called Red Dragon Cartel and the band members are: Jake E. Lee (g), Ronnie Mancuso (b), D.J. Smith (v) and Jonas Fairley (d). The band got support for Robin Zander (Cheap Trick), Paul di'Anno, Rex Brown (Pantera, Down),.... The result is the debut of the band called as well "Red dragon cartel".

So what to expect from this new record? Is it more like Ozzy's "Bark at the moon" and "Shot in the dark" or is it more like the blues-oriented Badlands? For me there are much more parallels with the Ozzy years. Red Dragon Cartel is definitely harder than Badlands. Songs like "Feeder" are reflecting this, with a melody line which also could have been on an Ozzy album while "War machine" shows some Black Sabbath influences. Esp. the doom riffs of the song are very similar to "Iron man" and "N.I.B.". Next to these songs there are also some hard rock songs on the album. "Redeem me" is one of them. Sounds like a harder version of Swiss Gotthard. "Fall from the sky" is another one. Than there is with "Wasted" a song on the album reminds me with its groove to Rob Zombie. My favorite song is "Slave" with its gloomy atmosphere and the pushing beat.

The outro is a 2 minutes piano solo, which is quite OK. The question is, why this song made it on the album. Is it that the band didn't have more songs?

To sum up: Red Dragon Cartel's debut is an interesting album and the songs are worth to listen to. The production is absolutely OK and the sound has a lot of power. What to I don't really like is a lack of consistency. There is no real red thread in the album due to the different styles on the album. Red Dragon Cartel is a good re-start for Jake E. Lee but the band has to find their own identity.

(7/10)

Tracklist:

1. Deceived
2. Shout it out
3. Feeder (feat. Robin Zander)
4. Fall from the sky
5. Wasted (feat. Paul di'Anno)
6. Slave
7. Big mouth (fast. Maria Brink)
8. War machine
9. Redeem me (feat. Sass Jordan)
10. Exquisite tenderness

Label: Frontiers Records

Genre: Heavy Metal

Jake E. Lee is back with RED DRAGON CARTEL - Markus' Heavy Music Blog

The Red Dragon Cartel is working on new release. Red Dragon Cartel is the former Ozzy Osbourne / Badlands guitarist Jake E. Lee together with Ronnie Mancuso (b), D.J. Smith (v) and Jonas Fairly (d)

http://mwiemetalblog.over-blog.com/2013/11/jake-e.-lee-is-back-with-red-dragon-cartel.html