Style: blues-rock, hard rock
Label: Mercury
Year: 1990
Home: Pennsylvania
Members: Tom Keifer ~ vocals/guitars/mandolin/piano/lap steel guitar/mandocello/dobro
Jeff LaBar ~ guitars
Eric Brittingham ~ bass
Fred Coury ~ drums/b. vocals
Additional: Bashiri Johnson ~ percussion
Jay Davidson ~ saxophone/piano
Rod Roddy ~ clavinet/piano
Dennis Ruello ~ baritone saxophone
Andrew Love ~ saxophone
Wayne Jackson ~ trumpet
Jay Levin ~ pedal steel guitar
Ken Hensley ~ organ
Brian O'Neal ~ piano/organ
Rick Criniti ~ keyboards
John Avarese, Roy McDonald ~ synthesizer programming
Elaine Foster, Sharon Foster, Tara Pellerin, Brenda King, Carla Benson, Curtis King, Evette Benton, Tawatha Agee, Eric Troyer ~ b. vocals
Some have called Cinderella's third album Heartbreak Station an improvement over what came before, others have totally dissed it. I didn't like their glam-laced debut & dismissed them without hesitance. When I heard their second album Long Cold Winter I suddenly reversed my opinion ... sort of. The second album saw them move from glam to blues-rock. I found the change a huge improvement. I didn't like their debut any better, but the second one made me interested & wanting to hear more. I did a review of Long Cold Winter & compared them to Tesla, '70's Aerosmith, the Rolling Stones, AC/DC, & a less melodic & memorable wannabe Aerosmith. That's not a bad thing, & better than the glam, but I had problems with the album. I wrote: "Its so great hearing a band really doing something different, really breaking the mold, really having a unique personality that draws from some different sources. Yet, Cinderella falters, making this not the great album it could be, but just a really good blues-rock album. ... Too many songs never seem to take off. ... Its like the band was hesitate to experiment too much & stray too far from home." I further stated: "Tom's singing on "If You Don't Like It" would make Stephen Tyler proud, but the music doesn't rise to the same level of excitement, so he's pulling a dead horse. Thus, Tom sounds like a man singing for his life on the verge of drowning. Don't believe me? Hum some of the guitar parts of the album. Not the vocals melodies, but the guitar melodies. Doubt you can, or you won't get far. You won't find many of them & they won't stick with you. Its just a wall of chords weighing down the album." Essentially, I loved what I heard, but saw so much potential that was not developed. I saw what could be an awesome blues-rock band. Though, honestly, I think I loved the album more for what it could be, than what it was. So, coming to their third album I wonder if they went where I wanted them to: did they feel they didn't go far enough & in turn rip out an awesome blues rock album, no holds bar; or did they play it safe yet again; or did they regroup to glam in fear; or did they lean more into the Aerosmith/Stones/AC/DC rock end of blues, versus going where I hoped by jettisoning the rock? As for the verdict: Well, its okay ... not what I was expecting, but on the bright side it could have been worse. & I misjudged the band. I gave them too much creativity credit when I thought they might go to some great musical places. Not really. This album still has a repressed feeling on it, where they try for some musical height & then give up, just like they did on Long Cold Winter. On the other hand, I might have misjudged them by thinking they had a desire to be something other than a cock rock band. If I had a third hand, I might just say I'm disappointed overall & can sadly understand why their career wasn't bigger. The album can best be described as a blues personality crisis. They do dig into the blues, but never with any conviction & focus, & eventually just jettison the idea when called upon to go beyond the surface of the style. On paper this album should be better than Long Cold Winter but they both kinda fail under their own ambitions. Heartbreak Station opens things up with a solo electric slide guitar that lets everyone know its time for some real down home blues with a rock edge, followed by a drum beat & scream. Yet, the song lets itself down, as take away the slide guitar & its a rather straight forward pedestrian rock song of a classic rock feel. This the blues doesn't anchor the song, but just become a gimmick to give it some personality. There's some horns tucked in the mix, but they don't do much. Its very disappointing. The acoustic slide solo doesn't even save it, as by then the gimmick is apparent. All the while Tom Keifer is doing his best Axl Rose. Its a pretty good imitation, but the result sounds like as if Axl fronted early Aerosmith. I feel like this is the G N'R/Aerosmith version of Dread Zeppelin, but without the humor. The fact that this song is named "The More Things Change" with the chorus of "The more things change / the more they stay the same" oozes unintentional. From there we go into the Aerosmith world of blues-rock even more with "Love's Got Me Doin' Time". Even with the horn section & wah-wah guitar it ends up sounding far too imitative for its own good. I wanted down home gutsy blues, but this still is firmly in the world of heavily polished unemotional big blues-rocks riffs over a bland rock song, with some sad, cliched & shallow lyrics. It really feels like the band doesn't have good songwriters & thinks that by throwing some horns & different guitar effects in then they've achieved something that could be called the blues. While if they imitate the music they grew up with then they'll be called original. I give them credit for sounding more like Aerosmith than any band at the time, given Aerosmith had moved past this sound at this time, but its not what I was looking for. Plus, Aerosmith did it better. From there the album moves between different styles of blues until they run out & just fall back to boring rock songs with sad rock lyrics. Its like they don't know what type of blues they want to play & will just do them all in the hope somebody likes something. It doesn't help that they have nothing to say & the lyrics are more rock than blues. While they also never do much original. Instead of aiming for a strong blues album they basically just go for imitating their heroes. "Shelter Me" is straight up acoustic blues, or acoustic blues with a bit of a kick, but is essentially the Rolling Stones with Axl Rose, horn line & female backing vocalists included. "Sick For The Cure" is more of this. The title track goes for acoustic with synthesizers imitating an orchestra for the power ballad approach to the blues. The only good thing is that Tom sings in a nice baritone versus his Blackie Lawless meets Axl Rose meets too many cigarettes with no range approach. "One For Rock & Roll" sticks to some acoustic country folk with a sad slide guitar, having not ticked that blues style off the list yet. I was waiting for a washboard to kick in during the song. There's other songs on the album, but they pretty much just sound like throwaway songs either full of blues gimmicks or just trying another blues style on for size. Kids in adult clothing is the result. The irony was that if Axl had released this instead of Chinese Democracy we would have loved it. Or, if Aerosmith & the Stones had returned to this classic sound we'd love them. The later sorta did on The Bigger Bang. For Cinderella, kudos for dumping their glam roots, but they really need to find themselves. They also need a stronger vision, more commitment to the music, something to say & better songwriters. I opened this review saying some critics hate this album, including saying its bland & non-distinct. After Long Cold Winter I couldn't understand what they meant. Now, listening to Heartbreak Station, I consider these critics more right than others. Sadly.
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