bigcoolguy.com

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Lenny Wolf is obviously a huge Led Zeppelin fan and he seems to have been born with a voice like Robert Plant. His project Kingdom Come (for which I was very surprised to find a web site) has been through many incarnations, including more recent ones that include just him and a lead guitarist. The band that issued their self titled album Kingdom Come in 1988 had very big hair and a sound that is a little too `1980s metal'.

The album begins with Living Out Of Touch, which is a bit ordinary. Wolf sings Robert Plant style vocals over the top of a band that sounds a little like a cross between Led Zeppelin and Van Halen, although without the audacious lead guitar and drums. This is `classic rock' with a touch of stock 1980s metal.

The next song Pushin' Hard has a much more Led Zeppelin like feel to it and it actually sounds pretty good. Following this, is What Love Can Be, which is a Tea For One style pseudo blues track - this is a great Led Zeppelin rip-off. From there the album pretty much follows the pattern set down by the first 3 tracks.

I actually like most of this album quite a lot, although parts of it do make me laugh out aloud! Kingdom Come sound best when they sound a lot like Led Zeppelin. Let's face it: Led Zeppelin sounded pretty good! Often the guitar playing sounds a bit more like Ritchie Blackmore or, perhaps, Eddie Van Halen than Jimmy Page, but you can't have everything. There is also some bad 1980s synthesiser. However, there are some nice grooves and you get to hear some songs that Led Zeppelin didn't write or record, but might have, had they occurred to them... and you get to hear some pretty average waffle...