Kingdom Come stir some interest back in ’88 when some of the listeners thought that Kingdom Come was actually a Led Zeppelin reunion. And their self-titled debut album was actually a nice piece of hard rock/blues rock collection of songs, almost similar to the sound and style of the legendary English rock band Led Zeppelin, actually they almost ripping their riffs right off.
The group was formed in 1987 after the breakup of Wolf’s previous project called Stone Fury. Wolf’s A&R man, Derek Shulman and record company, Polygram, allowed him exclusive freedom to assemble Kingdom Come’s lineup and direct its sound, and Wolf recruited Pittsburgh-based lead guitarist Danny Stag, guitarist Louisvillians Rick Steier, drummer James Kottak and from Northern Californian, bass player Johnny B. Frank. Stag and Frank had previously been members of the bands WWIII and Population 5.
In 1988, the band released its debut LP, Kingdom Come. The band’s first single, “Get It On,” was a big enough hit on AOR stations that the band’s eponymous debut went gold, meanwhile receiving platinum certificate.
In 1989, Kingdom Come released their next LP, called “In Your Face”. However, the album failed to sell well and all members other than Wolf quit the group.
And I admit it, I lost any contact with Kingdom Come, I really never heard anything about them since. But Wolf has been around all this time, actually “Rendered Waters” is the 13th album by Kingdom Come.
The opening track, “Can’t Deny”sounds like Scorpions, Wolf’s voice reminds me more of Klaus Meine than of Robert Plant and it’s a classic, back to the 80s kind of heavy metal track. It really was what I expected, if I had any expectation at all. From the second track, “The Wind”, things getting better, Wolf and his band mates manage to bring back something from the good old days shine of hard and heavy sound of the 80s, they oscillate somewhere between Led Zeppelin and Whitesnake and have a couple of good moments. Still, is nothing but well managed nostalgia,(re) rendered cliches, a better case of “copy of an imitation”. It wasn’t a total waste of time, it’s really not that bad, but I didn’t really heard anything new. Exclusively for fans and nostalgics only.
