Kenny Dubman

Any red-blooded music fan knows that an album can change your life. When the right record hits you at just the right time, an explosion of new thoughts and revelations are unleashed. Colours are brighter and purpose seems clearer. In a way, musicians are even more tuned into this phenomenon than most.

New Jersey vocalist/guitarist Kenny Dubman had left the main stage behind him. The musician's group Prophet had a string of acclaimed albums in the 80s touting that expansive arena rock sound. But scenes move on and by the beginning of the next decade, rock music had undergone a seismic shift. The band released their last album Recycled in 1991 and since then Dubman has largely stepped out of the spotlight. Fast forward to 2013 and after enduring tough years and a string of personal hardships, Dubman found a lifeline: The Whippoorwill by Blackberry Smoke. Something in the band's rock'n'roll revival sound reignited something in him and by Independence Day 2016, Dubman has returned with his first solo album Reckless Abandon.

This year finds Dubman again dipping into that well to release Conflicted, a southern-tinged slice of classic rock 'n' roll bolstered by some heavy hitter guest appearances. The album thematically explores the idea that everyone is wrestling with difficult decisions and personal dichotomies that make easy definitions or categorizations impossible. In many ways, acknowledging this conflicted nature in all of us would heal some of the extremely dualistic behaviour that has gripped our society in recent years.

The first single 'Old Dog' out this Friday serves as the album's opener. In a fitting full-circle moment, Dubman is joined on the track by Blackberry Smoke frontman Charlie Starr. Driving four-on-the-floor and revving engine guitars propel this straightforward rocker. The organ and guitar take turns ripping solos as the rhythm section leaves plenty of wide-open space for the theatrics.

'Toeing the Line' takes a step back from the electrified jams to sit back in an acoustic-led slowburner. Dubman stretches out his vocal cords belting out this sardonic sermon. He borrows a guitar lick from the mighty Jimmy Page, emulating his cycling lead in Zeppelin's 'Ten Years Gone'. Wily guitar master Zakk Wylde (Ozzy Osbourne, Black Label Society, Zakk Sabbath) lends his talents to 'Cruelest of Them All' an unassuming mid-tempo tune that builds to meet Wylde's spellbinding axe acrobatics. The guitar slinger doles out a blazing solo as he has done consistently on command for the past 30+ years. Fast boogie rocker 'Pitiful Fool' is a throwback to Dubman's 80s metal past. To this, he adds his new style of southern rock vocal delivery making for an interesting hybrid. This double-time juggernaut is the late album shot in the arm.

Dubman's solo career shows that inspiration can come from the next generation as much as the last. There can be this sense that “they did it better in the past and that the newcomers don't get it”. But staying fresh is about listening to what's emerging around you and never closing yourself off. Dubman has found new life with this embracing of a different style of rock.