Howard Leese-Secret Weapon (2009)

The career of American guitarist and composer Howard Leese is as productive as it is successful, from his beginnings in the late 1960s as the leader of the bands The Zoo and Mad Dog, with whom he released the albums "The Zoo Presents Chocolate Moose" (1968) and "Down Of The Seventh Sun" (1969) respectively, to his later participation as a member of the famous band Heart, with whom he achieved a brilliant and successful career, releasing half a dozen of some of the best and best-selling melodic rock and hard rock albums of the seventies and eighties, and his collaborations with other artists such as Randy Meisner of The Eagles, Lita Ford, and Paul Rodgers. In 2008, after regularly collaborating with Rodgers and his reformed Bad Company, he decided to record his first solo album, for which he collaborated with Paul Rodgers himself, as well as Joe Lynn Turner, Keith Emerson, Jimi Jamison, and Keith St. John, among others. With such a lineup of top-notch musicians, Howard recorded "Secret Weapon", a veritable showcase of great rock that blends various styles, from powerful hard rock to lighter folk-rock riffs and forays into progressive rock. From the opening and energetic "Alive Again", Leese makes his songwriting prowess evident, while also offering a clear nod to his glorious past with his beloved Heart, featuring the incomparable Joe Lynn Turner on vocals in a powerful and addictive hard rock track. American roots rock is present in the southern-tinged "Hot to Cold", while the symphonic and instrumental "33 West Street" is the album's most progressive moment, where Keith Emerson shares the instrumental spotlight with Leese's powerful guitar, his imposing keyboards complementing his driving guitar. While "Rada's Theme", another brilliant instrumental track, the melodic and irresistible "The South Summit" and "In These Eyes", or the blues rock "I've Been Leavin' You", demonstrate the enormous quality of an outstanding album of great American rock.