1. Baghdad
2. Fallen by the wayside
3. Child of Sorrow
4. What you wanna do
5. We are dead
6. All in
7. Blackmail
8. Shine a light on me
9. Easy does it
10. Before the eyes of the world
11. Don´t take me for a loser

GARY BARDEN belongs to THE voice of British hard rock. The first time BARDEN appeared in the scene was as part of the newly formed MSG (Michael Schenker Group) founded by the former SCORPIONS guitarist of the same name. Their first collaboration resulted in the highly acclaimed album “The Michael Schenker Group” which was released in 1980. Besides the great songs and the great guitar output BARDEN’s voice was one of the reasons why this album became a huge success and allowed the band to hit the road in Europe, Japan and the USA.

Their second album “MSG” saw the light of day in 1981 and followed an even more melodic direction than its predecessor. After the following world tour BARDEN was informed that he was no longer part of the band. Searching for a new band, BARDEN started to write some songs with the late THIN LIZZY guitarist GARY MOORE which later on ended up on MOORE’s “Corridor of Power” release. BARDEN was back with MSG for some live appearances including Reading Festival and the 1983 record “Built to Destroy”. The label’s pressure to steer more into a commercial direction made the band quit business in 1984.

After a long break BARDEN returned to the scene with PRAYING MANTIS’ “The Power of Ten” and the live album “Captured Alive in Tokyo City” (1996). In 2000, BARDEN hit the road again for a couple of live shows with COMPANY OF SNAKES and founded the band SILVER together with Michael Voss (CASANOVA) and Bernie Tormé (IAN GILLAN). STATETROOPER finally re-united in 2004 and put out the classy new record “The Calling”.

The Escape Music album “Past & Present” marked the first solo album by GARY BARDEN and offered a very personal collection of new, exciting interpretations of some all-time MSG classics, a selection of songs that both suited GARY BARDEN and MSG fans! With his long time pal ´Michael Voss´(Casanova, Bonfire) and a couple of friends he went back to the roots to perform his bluesy smoky songs that will touch your soul and are exemplified on the release “Agony and the Xtasy” . In 2007 the more rockier “Love and War” was released by Escape Music and it has been a long anticipated wait for the next chapter

The first listening of this album left me with a rather plain imprecision. If I was the kind of man that wrote my reviews after one listen I guess I would have trash this album. But I always listen to the albums a few times. And this album sure grew stronger for every time.

This is high quality melodic hard rock. There is a really good blend of uptempo and mid tempo songs here. And to top it of a really great singing effort by Gary Barden. A fun thing to note here is that on the song “ Child of Sorrow “ the old hand clap has been dusted off and put to use. And it really works. It just sounds right.

The track list is rather impressive, and the gems of the album is “ Baghdad “, “ We are dead “, “ Blackmail “ and “ Fallen by the wayside “.

If it was given some airtime on the radio I believe “ Fallen by the wayside “ could become a radio favorite and highly requested by listeners. ( In that way I do miss the 80´s when so much more Hard rock and heavy metal was played on the radio and on TV ). Still I think this song could get really popular. It got what it takes.

Unfortunately there is one song that brings the hole experience of the album down, and that is in my opinion a totally needless cover of Gary Moore´s “ Don´t take me for a loser “. I get that Barden probably wanted to give Gary a tribute since he worked with Gary on “ Corridors of power “ . But I think this is just a pale version of the original and I guess I would like to hear Barden to make his own version of it.

With that said it´s still a really good album that is worth checking out.