WARHORSE – Paul Di'Anno's Warhorse

vote
6.5

• Band:
  PAUL DIANNO, WARHORSE
• Duration: 00:36:24
• Available from: 07/19/24
• Label:

• BraveWordsRecords

The approach to this latest attempt at artistic rebirth by Paul Di'Anno inevitably hides two sides of the same coin. On the one hand, there is the awareness of being in front of a person who over the years has become the emblem of 'everything and the opposite of everything', dictated by his extreme obstinacy – or constraint, given the huge expenses for medical care that he must sustain – in continuing to go on stage; on the other, the simultaneous motivational inability to guarantee, to himself, the consistency of the physiotherapy treatments to which he must submit.
Considerations that were further amplified during the last edition of the Metalitalia Festival, in which the English singer participated during the first of the two days, bringing on stage a setlist entirely dedicated to his time with Iron Maiden. Gritty, committed, courageous in wanting to make himself available at all costs to the numerous fans who came for the meet'n'greet, but also worried, fearful and disheartened, so much so that after a few minutes he had abandoned the stage, leaving everyone stunned and necessarily also a little disappointed. A Paul Di'Anno who had therefore found the strength to finish his show, showing everyone his excesses, his contradictions and his compassionate ostentation in trying to start over every time, so much so that, at the end of the concert, he wanted to show up again in the external area, only to then interrupt, alas, the meeting also in the second part.
A quarrelsome state of mind that also recurs in this “Paul Di'Anno's Warhorse”, the debut album of the new project called Warhorse, in which, in addition to the sixty-six year old British, we find the two Croatian guitarists Ante 'Pupi' Pupačić and Hrvoje Madiraca, together with other musicians involved in the recording of the various tracks. Paul's stainless vocal determination is the counterpart to a not always impeccable performance style. A technical and emotional swing that we can find in its entirety in the moving “Forever Bound”, whose intro à la “Remember Tomorrow” presents us with an almost dejected Di'Anno, only to recover when the song gains strength and dynamism. This is to say that the ex-Maiden's throat still scratches, as demonstrated in the title track, in “Get Get Ready” – a good NWOBHM piece – or in “Stop The War” (a piece already present, together with the same “Warhorse” and “The Doubt Within” in the previous EP of the same name released last March). And if the conclusive “Going Home” has the sound very, very distant from the legendary “Running Free”, we have a laugh (the same as Paul, by the way) listening to “Tequila”, remaining then quite surprised in front of the discreet version of “Precious” by Depeche Mode, in which the singer Nikolina Belan also appears to support Di'Anno as a second voice.
Despite the countless inconsistencies that surround the character of Paul Di'Anno, his persistent failures, this new recording of his shows us at least an artist who is still capable of having his say.