EUROPE "WAR OF KINGS".

In the last few weeks I’ve been reading this forum “through my fingers”, trying to avoid the spoilers, but now I’ve recovered all the very interesting posts left behind and I’m ready to join with my 2 cents about War of Kings.
I must confess that at a first listening I was a bit disappointed. I think it was because of all those enthusiastic comments and reviews that were popping out everywhere (even if I tried to isolate I was way too curious!). So when you read all these 5 stars, 9 out of 10, masterpiece, the best, excellent…you start to build your own masterpiece in your mind. And when you finally hear the real album for the first time, and you realize that it’s totally different from what you expected, well…even if you receive a generally good impression you cannot help but feeling that something is missing.
Anyway, I’ve waited for this sensation to pass and I tried to listen again to the album with an open heart and mind. It’s 6 days now that WOK is continuously playing in my stereo, car, and computer and what I can say is that I like it very much!  Certainly more than Bag of bones (not my favourite album) but less than LLAE (still the best since the reunion for me). As usual it’s a grower, and I feel it’s still growing on me, so maybe I could slightly change some of my judgement later on.
WOK has a lot of things in common with Bag of bones in my opinion. Like in BOB, you can feel the big effort made by the band to keep it solid and homogeneous. Monolithic, I would say. I heard an interview with Joey (sorry, don’t remember which one) where he says that musically WOK can be considered a concept album. And it is absolutely so. BOB was a concept about the blues. WOK is a concept about the 70s heavy metal.
We know very well that Europe, through the years, have changed very much their style and that every album is different. Still, every album is very consistent with itself and I think that keeping the music so consistent has always been very important for the band. But now it has become maybe their first priority. I was actually a bit surprised when I read the (very interesting) interview with Mic posted by philreeves in another thread, where he (Mic, not philreeves ) says that they had to cut a few ballads out of WOK because they didn’t fit in the general atmosphere of the album. It explains a lot about how important it is for the band that the album has, altogether, its own personality, despite the different songs that form it.
The final result of this attention to the style, mood and atmosphere is that, when I’ve listened the first time to WOK (just like it was with BOB), I was not impressed by one song in particular but still received a very good general impression.
I was struck by its power , by the warm and full sound , by the excellent production I think that Europe have never ever ever sounded so good as in WOK (not even in my beloved LLAE). It is really a pleasure for the ears to listen to it…
I was also very well impressed by the attention to musical details in every song (this was lacking a bit in BOB, where the songs seemed sometimes, in my humble opinion, like, uhm, how can I say, rushed?). The songs in WOK are really well finished, and any opportunity offered by riffs and melodies is taken and exploited. It has already been said but I must emphasize this: all the guys play at their best here. No need to go in further details about this, just listen!
Also the lyrics seem to me much better and more inspired that in BOB. It seems that they have been more meditated and even if sometimes not crystal clear, as in the recent fashion, they are evocative and striking.
Moving now to what is missing to make it a real masterpiece: I think that’s what I call the “listen to this” effect. You know, when you are in your car, with a friend (no matter who he or she is, no matter what kind of music he or she likes). You turn on the radio, and as the music starts to flow, your friend looks at you and says: “wow , what’s that?” You could also call it the “Last look at Eden” effect or “the hit” effect.
In WOK this effect is missing. Actually, to me, it seems carefully avoided. From the same interview to Mic that I quoted before we learn in fact that “the general rule is still that we are not a hit band”. (isn’t that a little silly for a rule?  )
Now, this is only a feeling, but when I listen to some turns in the melody (first example that comes to my mind, in California 405), I feel (or better, I felt at the first listening, now it’s not so anymore) like the “easiest” melody line is intentionally avoided to shift on a different, and less conventional, pattern.
Of course this way the song is “a grower” and the “life expectancy” of the album is increased. But, perhaps, some moment of more immediate pleasure, could have been saved without harming the effectiveness of the whole work. Not always simple is synonymous of banal. Not always direct means mediocre. As a matter of fact there is one song in the album that is kept simple and direct and (maybe by chance?), it’s my favourite: Days of rock ’n’ roll . That’s the song that I’ve played more until now and I’m very happy that it has been chosen as the second single. So, in the end, for me WOK is a great album . Could have been the perfect album with some more straight melodies, but if I knew how to make the perfect album I would do it by myself. So my 2 (or 20? ) cents can be now dropped without a tear in the fountain of rock ’ ‘n’ roll just as a good luck wish for this great band.
I have probably over-analyzed (just a bit ) but I felt authorized to do so: after all it’s only once per album!