RICHIE KOTZEN – Get Up

Here’s another Richie Kotzen album. Kotzen’s past includes involvement with legendary hard rock bands like Poison and Mr. Big, plus the fusion act Vertu, among more. During his career, Kotzen has released a number of solo albums, and Get Up is the last in line.

Richie Kotzen is great. He is such a passionate musician, and all the attention his guitar skills have received since he was a teenager ’til today is deserved. He also sings more and more emotionally.

However, being a brilliant guitar player and composer won’t make him break new ground this time around. The problem with Get Up is that it adds absolutely nothing to his last two solo efforts Slow and Change.

Get Up sure is a more than great album, but you’ll be quite surprised why Kotzen hasn’t improved his routines more than he has. That is… the title track and track five, “So Cold”, take Kotzen further across the border to the Jimi Hendrix kingdom that he’s been carousing in for a while, but except for that, he has very few surprises up his sleeve this time around.

The ballad “Special” is beautiful, but will never enrich your musical collection a jot if you already have got Kotzen’s “Slow” album with its genius slow tune “Don’t Wanna Lie”. Neither will “Remember”, another ballad, put the world on fire for Richie. The last years he has insisted, for some reason, on performing and producing all the instruments and vocal tracks himself. Especially on “Remember,” he should have brought in a female on the backing vocals, or made it a kind of a duet. This would have lifted the song from being just average to something very special. In general, he really should stop singing his own backing vocals.

Except from the slow tunes, the album is full of some very funky, soulful, and groovy stuff. The giant leap good old Ritchie has embarked on since his last studio effort, is finally getting a grip on the drum programming. On his 2002 release, Slow, the drum programming sounded embarrassingly fake (this didn’t prevent the album from being very good, though …check it out, if you haven’t already!). Last year, on Change, he did a lot better. On Get Up the drums sound (what a relief …) all right enough.

If you don’t have any of Richie Kotzen’s solo albums, Get Up would be an excellent start! If you fancy melodic, funky, and intelligent hard rock, with a heartfelt expression, this is the album for you!

For those of you who have followed Richie Kotzen for a while, you better continue wondering why the man doesn’t get himself into a band again, and start aiming his attacks towards a broader crowd.

Get Up will be released on August 30th.

Tracklisting

1. Losin’ My Mind
2. Fantasy
3. Remember
4. Get Up
5. So Cold
6. Such A Shame
7. Made For Tonight
8. Still
9. Never Be The Same
10. Special
11. Blame On Me (European bonus track)