Stephen
It's quite rare to find a good melodic rock album in the new millennium but Kick provided something fresh with their second output, 'Sweet Lick of Fire'. Still carrying the modern nuance but not heavily contaminated and I can hear the basic root of classic AOR in most of the songs here. Nick Workman is a splendid singer and honestly I recognized his talent only through Vega's last year record, 'Kiss of Life'.
The strength of this album lies on at least 6 superior tracks that scattered from the first half to the second. 'Inhibition', 'Born Again', and 'Praying For The Day' are three fave tracks here and all of them are energetic, fast-paced, and lively. On the contrary, the weakness of this album is obvious by the lack of uptempo tracks beside those three, because if Kick concentrated more on heavier songs, I can think this album will be much more interesting.
It's not like they can't make a good ballads or midtempo, in fact, songs like 'Time' or 'Where I Belong' are sensational in their own way. Check out 'Behind Close Doors' with its superb chorus or 'Painless' which will haunt you like crazy with its nice harmonies and neat composition. I was forgetting some fillers like the title track, 'So Help Me God', or 'The Greatest Show On Earth' earlier, but after coming back for more spins, I don't think it's too bad at all.
The production is great but somehow the sound is too machine-d at times, maybe that's the effect of applying the modern structure within the body of most songs. And they could have reduced the amount of ballads and pushed couple of them to the next album to avoid losing momentum with slower tempo tracks.
I also need to underline again that Nick is such a gifted singer, his vocal is obviously the most standout highlight of this album, and it works fine for him in Vega too. Good album overall and I rated it around 75%, yes it ain't a super awesome and consistent release, but this kind of album is my thing and love to bought it for quite a cheap price sometimes ago.