Blog Post
Hardline - 'Heart, Mind and Soul'
Iain McArthur • 20 July 2021
Album Review
Quite a few folks’ hearts, minds and souls will have taken a bit of a kicking over the last year or so but Johnny Gioeli is a man on a mission to bring back some passion, energy and positivity to the world with this new Hardline album.
There are plenty upbeat rockers on display, like the Y&T sounding “Fuel to the Fire” which starts the album with a bang, carrying on with gems like “Surrender” and “The Curse” and then taking us back to the Sunset Strip on “80s Moment”.
The semi-ballad “Heavenly” is lush and gives all the band members a chance to shine, with Mario Percudani in particular stepping up with some outstanding guitar work. “Searching For Grace” is another amazing song and heavily features orchestration, keys and backing vocals from Alessandro del Vecchio. AdV’s fingerprints are also all over the velvety keyboard infused AOR of “If I Could I Would” which is my favourite song on the album.
There are some instant classics here which should easily impregnate the band’s already well-stocked set list, so we’ve got that to look forward to when the band headline Winterstorm at Troon in November, all being well. Fingers crossed.