White Wizzard – Flying Tigers
Release Date: November 15, 2011
Highlights: Fight To The Death, Flying Tigers, Fall of Atlantis, Blood on the Pyramids, Demons and Diamonds, War Of The Worlds
Releasing a sophomore effort for any artist is a stressful thing to do, especially if your debut was met with lots of critical acclaim from press and from fans. Every now and then a band releases a sophomore album that completely surpasses it’s predecessor showing significant growth and an evolution of sorts. Unfortunately, “Flying Tigers” by White Wizzard is not that album. The band’s previous album “Over The Top” remains one of my favorite modern metal albums. It was catchy, kitschy fun and the songs were even memorable. All those qualities seem to be sadly lacking from “Flying Tigers.”
The album opens with “Fight to the Death” which is a really solid and flooring piece of metal that easily could have been on “Over The Top.” Well played and well executed, I was hopeful that this would set the pace for what was to come. Unfortunately, things took a somewhat ridiculous turn with “West L.A Nights” which once again boasted some really impressive well played music. It’s just that lyrics like “The sands and winds are blowing through my soul. Makes me want to lose all self control. The Rainbow’s rocking and the boys are ready to go.” For a second I thought I was just typing out the lyrics to a Poison song. These aren’t the lyrics I think of when I think of an awesome metal band. Ok, so maybe Saxon but only because it would have been 1982.
The performances as a whole on “Flying Tigers” is really quite stellar until you get to the guitar solos. The absence of a solid and integrated guitarist is very apparent when listening to the delivery of these songs and this causes the songs to really suffer at times. The rhythm playing is outstanding and Leon’s bass playing as always is really quite remarkable but what happened to the solos? That ending of “Starchild” sounds like a complete meltdown of incompetence. I’m sure it was done intentionally but it just didn’t cut it for me. Cut these solos out and you’ll have an even better album. It also should be no surprise that the MVP of this album is vocalist Wyatt Anderson. Anderson has to be one of the greatest modern metal singers out there but even his killer performance cannot deter from the lyrical content.
Jon Leon is definitely not ashamed about showing his heavy Ronnie James Dio influence on songs like “Starchild” but one can only take so many “wings of a dragon” or “flying/soaring high on the wings of [insert winged animal here] references. I also can’t help but feel that there’s a conflict of interest here where Leon feels that soaring on the wings of a dragon is a good thing. Didn’t Dio want to “kill the dragon?” I mean, unless you’re talking about flying on the back of the Luck Dragon from The Never Ending Story. He seemed like a nice dragon. Things that make you go “hm” indeed. The corny sexual undertones of “Night Train to Tokyo” and “Nightstalker” don’t do much to save “Flying Tigers” from plummeting into the ground. My eyes were rolling so much during these songs that I felt like I was having a seizure. Please let it get better from here.
When the “conceptual” part of the album was about to start I was already expecting the worst but all of the sudden, here comes “ Fall of Atlantis.” I couldn’t believe my ears. This song was absolutely outstanding. I literally stood up out of my chair and I said to myself, “This could be as good as any song on Iron Maiden’s “Seventh Son of a Seventh Son” album. “Blood on the Pyramids” and “War of the Worlds” also proved to be stellar. I didn’t really catch the conceptual side of them but what I was floored by was just how great these three songs are. My only question is this. Why can’t the rest of “Flying Tigers” play out like these three songs. Leon is obviously capable of writing an epic metal masterpiece and did so with these songs.
“Flying Tigers” is a musically great album that is plagued only by lyrical mediocrity that at times come close to reaching Spinal Tap and even Poison like proportions. Unfortunately, the best part of this album lies buried so deep towards the end that I almost didn’t make it to these songs. The absence of a solid line up really causes this album to suffer and not be as cohesive of an album as it really could be. If I had to sum up “Flying Tigers” in two words I would say “party metal.” You know what I’m talking about. Like when you were a kid and you’d show up to a party with a bunch of people and the music was loud and everyone was just talking and being rowdy. Nobody thought the music sucked but at the same time, it wasn’t engaging enough to make anyone shut the fuck up and listen. This album definitely didn’t suck but it didn’t come close to meeting my expectations as a follow up to “Over The Top.” Maybe if this current White Wizzard line up can stick it out, there will be a greater sense of focus, direction and execution on the next one.
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