Cemetery Junction Demon 2016 Spaced Out Music Demon are Heavy Metal band that rose to prominence during the New Wave of British Heavy Metal movement. Led by Dave Hill, Demon released the NWOBHM classic, Night of the Demon in 1981. Demon originally called it a day in 1992, but reformed in 1997 with a sound that has moved more to a radio friendly Hard Rock sound than the NWOBHM style that they rode the crest of the wave with. Cemetery Junction is Demon’s 13th studio album and is the follow up to 2012’s Unbroken. Cemetery Junction ploughs a similar path to Unbroken with the only line-up change being the addition of Karl Waye on the keyboards after the departure of Paul Farrington. This brings the Demon line-up to be completed by founding vocalist Dave Hill, David Cotterill and Paul Hume on the guitars, former guitarist Ray Walmsley now plays the bass with Neil Ogden on the drums. Cemetery Junction has been produced by one time Clay Records owner, Mike Stone and Hill with a sound that many people won’t be accustomed to when thinking of Demon. What you have with the production of Cemetery Junction is a record that sounds restricted, whether by funding, ability or studio. However, it is not all about the production and there are some decent songs which prevail over this initial barrier. What you get with Cemetery Junction is an album that shows glimpses of Demon’s past, present and possibly future in what can only be called a mixed bag. The opening track from Cemetery Junction is Are You Just Like Me (Spirit of Man) which brings back memories of the seminal album, Night of the Demon. However, the sound of the glory days ends there with the songs on Cemetery Junction ploughing at a more Hard Rock/Melodic Rock furrow with the extremely early 80’s sounding Queen of Hollywood and Turn on the Magic sounding like an early version of Magic from 1981’s Difficult to Cure by Rainbow. All that aside, there are some very good songs on Cemetery Junction, the title track in particular is quite catchy, Life in Berlin is another Hard Rock style song that will get stuck in your head alongside The Best is Yet to Come. The main issue with Cemetery Junction is that most of the songs fail to stick and feel distinctly average. These days, Hill’s voice seems rather shot and worn out with some songs, especially the ballads Thin Disguise, Miracle and Someone’s Watching You with Demon straying into Magnum territory with Hill’s voice sounding a lot like Bob Catley’s. In this similar vein, the penultimate song on Cemetery Junction, Out of Control has the vibe of modern Deep Purple with Hill actually doing an accurate impression of Ian Gillan’s voice these days. Cemetery Junction is sadly, rather a distinctly average album with some of the tracks being very good, but the album is also weighed down by filler and some rather grotesque ballads. Cemetery Junction will not be the worst album this year, however, it has been eclipsed by peer bands such as Diamond Head, Tygers of Pan Tang and even Steve Grimmett’s Grim Reaper. 5/10 Adam Are You Just Like Me? (Spirit of Man) (Hill/Walmsley)
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November 2016
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