Kev Rowland
Only two years after ‘Life’, Hardline returned with their seventh studio album “Heart, Mind and Soul’ with the same line-up of Johnny Gioeli (lead vocals), Alessandro Del Vecchio (keyboards, backing vocals), Anna Portalupi (bass), Mario Percudani (guitars) and Marco Di Salvia (drums). Like every other band they had been unable to complete their tour for the last album, so promptly set about working on this one (which I guess has at least a certain amount of remote recording). Hardline will always be thought of as the band formed by the Gioeli brothers with Deen Castronovo and Neal Schon of Bad English, but although there have been some breaks and line-up changes over the years Johnny is still there, this is the fourth album for Anna and Alessandro, and the second for Mario and Marco (although Mario has since left).
One always knows what we are going to get with Hardline, namely melodic hard rock, and this continues in the same vein as the others. They have also had a harder edge than the likes of Journey but still have plenty of hooks and great vocals. Johnny has always been recognised as a great singer and has of course been fronting Axel Rudi Pell’s band for more than 20 years, but it is fair to say they have never again reached the heights of the first two albums, and while they produce good albums with some nice songs, they are never essential and often the melodies and lines are repeated, and it just grates a little. The name Hardline on the front cover means the music will always be well produced and performed, the vocals top quality, but they are let down somewhat by the quality of the songwriting and it would be interesting to see what would happen if Neal were involved again but at the present this is a fun release, but rarely more than that and I will probably turn to the ‘Live At The Gods Festival 2002’ when I want to hear this band really on fire.