david mark pearce strange ang3ls

Released: 27 June 2011 Label: AOR Heaven

David Mark Pearce, musician, turned sound engineer, turned musician again, has burst onto the rock scene with his debut solo album, Strange Ang3ls. To do that, he has turned to the skills of many of his former customers and bandmates, allowing them to return the favours, I suppose.

The album opens with a scream that had me looking round thinking that someone was in serious pain. However, it was just the atmospheric intro. Then the album gets on with some serious rock. It’s decent enough, entertaining if un-inspiring, solidly played, well produced and ultimately, just a little bit bland.

Having said that, the title track, Strange Ang3ls is quite entertaining, with John Payne winding up the vocal line to sound remarkably like his Asia roots. At the other end of the scale, Every Time It Rains is an instrumental where David gets to play the guitar hero. He pulls it off, to be fair, but it’s somehow out of place on this album.

The rest of the album floats somewhere between those two extremes, the rock equivalent of musical wallpaper.

A decent effort, but hardly on the ‘must buy’ list.

by Alan Thomson