Tri State Corner - 'Hero' Album Review

Tri State Corner – Hero

13 years ago, five guys from Greece, Poland and Germany set off to revolutionize the music scene by integrating a Greek lute, ‘a Bouzouki’, into their catchy rock songs, and by equipping their mainly English lyrics with passages sung in the Greek language.

In the meantime, TRI STATE CORNER with four studio productions and 450 live shows under their belts, have long since become an established force in the musical landscape and have built up a large and still growing fan base, not least because of their unique selling point, the Bouzouki, and their many captivating and entertaining live shows.

The first thing that hits you here is the lute. It sounds great even among the heavy guitar riffs of opening track ‘Fortune In Lies’. This is a great opening track with its stop-start guitar in the verse.‘Tomorrowland’ instantly lets you know what country these guys hail from. The twiddly lute bits in this song remind me of the start of ‘Fight Fire With Fire’ by Metallica, one of my all time favourites. ‘Tomorrowland’ is another great tune and so far I’m impressed.

 

‘Daydreamer’ has a very catchy chorus, easily the most radio friendly so far. I’m loving these instruments that are being played within all these songs so far. Theres’ a Darbuka, Bouzouki and a lute and they work really, really well. I’ve not heard a band use so many instruments like this since You Slosh in the 90’s!!

The opening to ‘Save My World’ is absolute sublime. Greek music crossed with heavy rock at its very best with an Indian feel to it. I can hear a hint of ‘Wherever I May Roam’, again by Metallica. I’ll be honest the deeper I’m getting into this album the more I’m enjoying. ‘Follow Me Blindly’ has a chorus which is almost identical to Nickelback’s ‘S.E.X’, but a great tune regardless. ‘Downfall’ comes and goes and hits hard and leads us perfectly into album title track ‘Hero’. This for me is the best track on the album. Full acoustic, no drums, great chorus. This track needs to be listened to through headphones as the mixing is amazing the way the instruments are split between ears. Guitars in one ear, lute etc in another. Fantastic tune.

Can ‘Hero’ be topped? ‘Voices’ certainly tries its best as its trots along. The album ends with tracks ‘Breaking News’, ‘Wanted’ and ‘In The Blink Of An Eye’. All good rock anthems to close what is a very good effort by Tri State Corner.

Score 8/10

Reviewed by Sty

Track Listing

1 - Fortune In Lies

2 - Tomorrowland

3 - Daydreamer

4 - Save My World

5 - Follow Me Blindly

6 - Downfall

7 - Hero

8 - Voices

9 - Breaking News

10 - Wanted

11 - In The Blink Of An Eye

Line-Up

Vassilios “Lucky” Maniatopoulos (Vocals, Darbuka), Ioannis “Janni” Maniatopoulos (Bouzouki, Vocals), Markuz Berger(Bass), Christos Efthimiadis (Drums), Christoph “Brat” Tkocz (Guitars, Backing Vocals)