【Pls look at the top comment first】Jamaica-born American musician Phlip Bardowell is always a very welcome singer and songwriter in loyal fans' heart as an influential figure, who is also known as a faithful Christian musician. He wanted to search the new purpose for lifetime during the days of his youth, so Christian spirit becomes the indispensable part as well as music of his life.
Before Philip Bardowell became a solo musician, he had worked with lots of legendary musicians on vocals. His solo debut was released in 2000, an independent album called "In A Perfect World". Until today, he still keeps on rock and CCM creation and performance.
From his solo debut, Philip's music works are smooth, which can make heart and soul in peace. The debut is a pop and folk release. Here in his second solo album "In The Cut (2005)", his flaming rock spirit was obviously awakened. What a mighty rock singer he is! Actually, rock music has kept with him all the time when he was at very young age as well as during the beginning of his singing careers. "In The Cut" was like another explosion in the 21st century, making fans hear his passion on the solo performance.
The album "In The Cut" includes many shining points. Don't miss it as it will leave everybody the deep impression. How many bands and projects did Philip Bardowell attend on vocals? There is a big numer of those.
"In The Cut" includes the best works of Philip Bardowell, featuring the outstanding performance of him and a Swedish rock star on producing. Though he is a Christian musician, not all his albums belong to CCM. This album carries the common themes from the songs. It seems to be underrated and rarely mentioned on today's melodic rock scene. Undoubtedly, its quality is indisputable.
In the noughties onwards, Frontiers Records released a big number of hard/melodic rock albums of both well-known and less-known artists. However, lots of the albums were not noticed outside the closed circle of melodic rock and aor, including this "In The Cut" of Philip Bardowell. It's never too late to review it, a big treasure coming out that year.
In his careers, especially those years into the 21st century, Philip Bardowell performed with many artists as well as in many bands and projects on lead and backing vocals. The albums which he recorded feature the styles from metal to westcoast. As an excellent vocalist, he can well handle the hard & heavy taste and the lite taste. His name appreared in various epic albums from AOR (project), "Ken Tamplin And Friends", N.O.W, Radioactive, Places Of Power, Christian Tolle Project etc. It should never be forgotten that the 1990s Christian folk rock band Magdalen saw his early performance on lead vocals, which was the formal beginning of his career as a Christian musician.
The line-up from "In The Cut" is simple, but it includes a rock star, Tommy Denander. As we know, Tommy Denander is a notable all-around musician on guitars, keyboards, songwriting and producing. This time, the epic album "In The Cut" was produced by Tommy Denander, who co-wrote the theme title song "In The Cut" with Philip Bardowell.
The full-length album also features several legendary musicians on songwriting, Stan Bush, Mark Spiro, Jim Peterik (Survivor), Curt Coumo (Signal, Steve Perry), Harry Paress as well as Tommy Denander, making this album stand out as one of the top-class releases in 2005 by Frontiers.
In this album, there are some familiar tunes. That is to say, apart from Philip Bardowell, the songs were sung by other artists. Philip Bardowell's solo version is one of those, which was either the original version or the epic cover. Of course the song "Never Too Late For Love" is such an epic and familiar tune on the melodic rock scene. Loyal aor fans will remember another version of it. It was written by Curt Cuomo and Harry Paress. In 2005, Philip Bardowell originally sang the song and 7 years later, it was re-recorded by Hardline, included in the band's album "Danger Zone (2012)", also released by Frontiers. The two versions both sound excellent. By comparision, Bardowell's version carries the sense of nostalgia like a 1990s aor work in vein of the taste of Mark Free. It is worth mentioning that Philip Bardowell was one of the lead vocalists of legendary Unruly Child, who sang in the fourth album "UC III (2003)" of the band.
Another great song which left deep impression on me is the second track "Through My Eyes", which was written by Mark Spiro as well as a big treasure from Mark Spiro's albums in 1996 and in 2020. This time Bardowell's cover lights up the passion once again. How epic the song is ! In 2010, it was covered by Terry Brock when he sang in Giant. All these versions of the song were all released by Frontiers.
Musically, this album is an aor pearl for whoever is fond of Mark Free's solo stuffs, Signal, Unruly Child, Jimi Jamision's solo stuffs and the monumental Survivor.
#MelodicRock #aor #PhilipBardowell #TommyDenander
