Crow7 – go on, admit it, you’ve never heard of them have you? Me neither to be perfectly honest. Usually, these review CD’s come with some sort of publicity material but in this case even that is totally absent. Crow7 don’t even get a mention on rockdetector.com, which is s measure of how obscure they are. Still, a swift visit to their website should do the trick! Oops, no – it’s all in German with no English version. Not to worry, I’ve got O Level German (showing my age there) and I like Rammstein and Die Toten Hosen so some basic information shouldn’t be beyond me. 

Crow7 are, it seems a bit of a one-man band with that one man being guitar virtuoso and songwriter Frank Tienemann. Frank, being a clever boy plays all the guitars, drums, almost all the bass, keyboards as well as lead and backing vocals. As the artwork is by the band it is fair to assume that he had a hand in that as well. Oh, he wrote or co-wrote all the songs as well! 

Appearances can be deceptive as we all know and purely from looking at the CD cover I was thinking Yngwie style guitar-fest or some version of Euro-metal. Regular visitors to HardRockHouse will know that that would be right up my street.  Upon my first listen I eliminated all Yngwieisms from my enquiries but kept the Euro-metal as a suspect, but it was only when I whipped on the old I-pod and took the hound out that all became clear to me. This is old-fashioned hook laden hard rock with an 80’s bent and what’s more, it’s bloody good as well! 

I must say that I struggled for reference points. Initially the keyboards that heralded the open Vivid Eye had me thinking power metal but the crunching guitars took me back to hard rock. At times I was also thinking about Stratovarius, Stefan Elmgren’s Full Strike and even fleetingly, John Parr! Vivid Eye is a fairly strong opener but is by no means the best song here and, I would argue, is Super Frank’s weakest effort vocally. On the other hand, his guitar work as throughout is excellent. 

The voice isn’t the strongest part of Demons on a Ray but it’s another fine song propelled by Frankie’s guitar heroics and a nicely understated female backing vocal. This song made me scribble Talisman in my notes which is good as is the big 80’s ballad Time sitting at position number three. Crystal Wall has a kind of Alannah Myles Black Velvet style to it before Fallen Angel lets the side down by being a little nondescript.

Things get seriously good with the triple whammy of Somewhere in Heaven (cool sing along bit), Son of A Hero (huge singsong mid tempo ballad) and The Picture part one (epic with 80’s guitars) before Kiss of Death is one of the other songs which could have perhaps been left off. The Picture highlights the problem Germanic vocalists have when singing in English as to my ears it sounds like “mine is the Big Show” conjuring up all sorts of WWE visions.  

The quality picks up again with the wonderful Invisible Voice, Janus, The Picture part two and Hand in Hand draw the album to a highly satisfying close. I’d have to say that whilst I’d never heard of Crow7 previously I am now very happy to have made their acquaintance and would suggest that if you like your rock melodic and vaguely 80’s then you should welcome them into your life as well.

Let us know your views on 'Accelerator'

Track List

Vivid Eye
Demon On A Ray
Time
Crystal Wall
Fallen Angel
Somewhere in Heaven
Son Of A Hero
The Picture (part one)
Kiss Of Death
Invisible Hands
Janus
The Picture (part two)
Hand in Hand

Line Up

Frank Tienemann - Vocals/Guitars/Bass
Dzidek Marcinkiewicz - Piano
Daniel Sebass - Bass