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Chris Rea - The Road to Hell: Part 2 Audio CD

A fair review of the Chris Rea "The Road to Hell: Part 2" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Chris Rea reviews here, or go back to the Chris Rea tabs.

Chris Rea Band: Chris Rea
Title: The Road to Hell: Part 2
Rating:
Release Date: 1999-11-15
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Can't Get Through 2: Good Morning 3: E 4: Last Open Road 5: Coming off the Ropes 6: Evil No. 2 7: Keep on Dancing 8: Marvin 9: Firefly 10: I'm in My Car 11: New Times Square 12: Way You Look Tonight

An electro Rea...
I almost didn't pick up this one thanks to the scathing reviews here on Amazon, then I decided that as he'd never let me down in the past, he was unlikely to here. I'm a big fan of Chris Rea, and last month, I picked up 7 of his albums.

Well, it is a big change in direction for him, more electro with prominent synthesizers, heavy dance beats and prominent female backing vocals, though the old sound does rear it's head here and there on songs like the snarling rocker "Last open road" or the tender piano sprinkled gem "E" (the piano riff reminds me of "Tell me there's a heaven" - this is my favourite). I can see why it put loads of his fans off. If you like "On the beach", "Fool if you think it's over" and "Josephine"-style Chris Rea and nothing else, this CD is definitely NOT for you. If you're open to an artist experimenting, then this might just be up your alley.

Other standouts are the Jazzy spoken "Coming up the ropes", the similar "Evil No. 2" (though with heavier beats), the latin-tinged "Keep on dancing", the horn sprinkled beautiful ballad "Marvin", the throbbing "Firefly" (my other favourite), the very experimental horn-peppered "In my car", the club number "New times square", and the lightly Island-tinged ballad "The way you look tonight".

I really don't get why this album was titled "The road to hell part 2" as it largely lacks the apocalyptic message of Part 1. As expected, the album didn't do too well which I think was more to do with fans not being enamoured with his new musical direction than the quality of the music, which as ever is top notch!!.


Huh?! What happened?

I'm rather disgusted by this entire affair. What happened here? Is this seriously Chris Rea?
That's what pops into my head when I start trying to listen to this so-called successor to "The Road to hell".
Somebody tried to pull a Clapton/Simon Climie ala "Pilgrim"
It's my least favorite Chris Rea release. In my humble opinion his worst release. It's a rather annoying release and almost unlistenable. I was highly disappointed by this. My least played Rea album and one that now simply sits in my collection.
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litigation in order here
I'll tell you what. . . Chris Rea ought to find out who used his name, mocked his voice, and aped a few of his guitar lines and sue his ass for defamation of character - because this is career-ending material. Fortunately, his career survived this attempt on his great name and reputation, and has since done, arguably, his best stuff. .


this is bad
I learned from a few friends that this is really more like his regular sound than the original, that he writes a lot of dance (!) music. Anyone who liked the intellegence of the Mark Knopler meets Leonard Cohen nightmare of the original will be startled by the banality of this thing. That's a little sad. I don't know, it's not even available stateside. Maybe there's a reason.


A Major Disappointment.
Chris Rea has deliberately tried to make the songs sound more up to date - In other words, there's a lot of drum machines and some female backing vocals. Compared to the original "Road to Hell" album, this is a very poor effort. Quite frankly it just doesn't work.

Lyrically, there's nothing very new either. The lyrics continue the same theme as the original album, with just a bit of a NY theme thrown in. Even worse, the song "Good Morning" sounds just like a filler designed to add another 5 minutes of playing time to the CD.

Two songs do stand out from the general mediocrity here. "E" is a well presented and thoughtful song about the drug Ecstacy, and the ballad "Marvin" a touching tribute to Marvin Gaye. Interestingly, both these songs sound more like traditional Chris Rea.

In short, this artist is capable of much better work than this. Give this one a miss.


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