Chez Kane is Back in the Zone
Sophomore effort "Powerzone" another melodic rock triumph for Welsh singer.
Hello and thanks for spending part of your day with Michael’s Record Collection. One of the weird things I hear people say these days is that rock and roll is dead or “over,” but in truth there’s never been more rock music being written and recorded all over the world. Just because it isn’t the flavor of the month for popular radio or the music charts, that doesn’t mean it isn’t out there. It simply means that more effort is required to both find it — it’s not being force fed to us anymore — and to sift through what’s out there to find the flavors that appeal to your personal tastes.
In fact, it’s almost overwhelming with the amount of music out there to find the stuff that truly rises to the top of the heap.
One artist who is starting to gain traction in that regard is Welsh vocalist Chez Kane (the pronunciation of her first name rhymes with the word “says” or “fez” and the “Ch” is soft, making a “sh” sound, as in Cheryl). Kane, who was part of the group Kane’d with her two sisters, Stacey and Stephanie, and other musicians, is set to release her second solo album.
That’s the subject of this week’s story.
Chez Kane loves to sing and she’s good at it. Citing an early passion for singing along with the likes of Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, and Pat Benatar, she’s been doing it her whole life. For the past several years she’s been sharing her vocal talents with the world, working with her two older sisters in the modern rock act Kane’d, which has released an EP and three albums so far. The most recent is 2018’s Show Me Your Skeleton. Her self-titled solo debut was recorded during the early part of the pandemic and came out in 2021. Now she’s set to release the follow-up, Powerzone, on Oct. 21 on Frontiers Music. Like her first album, Powerzone is a strong melodic rock album that showcases Kane’s singing talents, which apparently run in her family.
“My dad's a singer. Then my sisters are obviously singers and I got jealous of them,” Kane said. “I wanted to sing like them too. My eldest sister was the one who started singing first, even though I was always singing from the second I could talk. She was the one that started taking it seriously first, and then it kind of like went down the line.”
It was a YouTube video she made that led to her excellent 2021 solo debut release. Kane, whose voice sounds like a combination of Benatar’s and former Vixen lead vocalist Janet Gardner’s, recorded and posted a video of herself singing Vixen’s “Edge of a Broken Heart.” That performance caught the attention of vocalist/guitarist Danny Rexon from Swedish rock outfit Crazy Lixx.
Rexon was looking to get into producing an act of his own, and was searching for the right singer so he could bring the project to Frontiers Music’s Serafino Perugino. Frontiers has long been known for its affinity for classic and melodic rock acts, and Rexon wanted to put something together that echoed the 80s melodic rock sound — not quite metal, but with an emphasis on melody with a bit of an edge to it.
He found in Kane the perfect voice to deliver the kind of music he wanted to make, and the result was the Welsh singer’s Chez Kane album, which was right up there among the 2021’s best releases categorized in the so-called “New Wave of Classic Rock.” That niche included successful albums such as Mason Hill’s Against the Wall and The Dust Coda’s Mojo Skyline.
As with the first album, Kane handled the vocal duties on the upcoming Powerzone album and Rexon essentially did everything else, aside from playing saxophone on a track. He wrote the songs and played nearly everything that can be heard on the record, although it was very much a collaboration in which he sought Kane’s buy-in on everything.
“He’s a very talented man,” Kane said of Rexon. “He did ask me if I wanted to write some songs, and I did give it a go, but my style of writing is more like Kane’d, so it's a bit more modern rock. And he just writes this style of music so perfectly. I didn't want to touch it. So I said to him, ‘Look, you keep doing your thing. I'll do my thing.’ It's working. We'll just keep it that way.”
It really is working, because Powerzone is a terrific follow-up to Chez Kane. It features 10 more songs that capture the melodic rock sound of the 80s but with a modern production value. Powerzone channels a little Bon Jovi and Def Leppard with hook-laden choruses that could have been penned by Survivor’s Jim Peterik. If you hear a little KISS in there as well, like I do, it’s because Rexon is a KISS fan. Kane soars over it all with a voice that sounds like Gardner’s in timbre, but with a hint of Benatar’s snarl peeking through.
Kane and Rexon worked separately on the album, with the latter sending demos to Kane in Wales. Rexon would then add his overdubs, polish, and production wizardry from his studio in Sweden. The two agreed on just about everything musically and Kane said there weren’t any songs Rexon sent her that she didn’t like.
“I think there were one or two songs that he sent, that I demoed, that we didn't go with,” she said. “He wants me to be just as happy as he is, because obviously they’re songs I'm going to be performing for hopefully the rest of my life. But he just knocked it out of the park.”
The melodic choruses, layered backing vocals, and guitar solos transport listeners back to the 1980s. Rexon has a knack for writing great pop/rock songs in that style and that is evident immediately on the first song, “I Just Want You,” one of the album’s pre-release singles — a fantastic meld of keyboards, guitars, and big backing vocals packaged with the slickness of Def Leppard’s Hysteria or Heart’s self-titled album. There are reminders of Heart’s “What About Love” and “Reason to Live” by KISS in the album’s opening track without being directly derivative of either.
It’s an appropriate choice for an opening song because it lets the listener know immediately what kind of experience they’re going to have over the course of the record.
“(The Things We Do) When We’re Young in Love” and “Rock You Up” have infectious choruses that seep directly into the brain, stimulating the nerves and motor functions that involuntarily cause the listener to reach out and turn up the volume.
My favorite track might be single “Love Gone Wild,” with Jesse Molloy guesting with his gratuitous saxophone. Kane used sax on the opening track to her first album (“Better Than Love”) as well, and said she got goosebumps when Rexon had sent her the initial track. So, she was excited about having another sax song.
“He sent me ‘Love Gone Wild’ and he’s like, ‘You’re gonna like this,’” Kane said. “And I was like, ‘OK, why?’ And then I heard the saxophone and again, goosebumps.”
“Children of Tomorrow Gone” is a tasty power ballad-type track that time jumped from 1986 to the present.
Another highlight on the album is the title track. “Powerzone” was the first song that Rexon sent Kane when work on the album began. She said that’s probably why the album ended up with the name it did, but it was also one of her favorite songs on the record.
“The second I heard that song, it just hit me with so much excitement, because it's the kind of song that you would hear on a movie like Top Gun,” she said. “It's just got that feel of excitement in it.”
She’s not wrong. It’s easy to imagine the song on an 80s movie soundtrack. Rexon provides one of his best guitar solos on the album on the title track as well.
The most Benatar-esque song might be “I’m Ready (For Your Love).” “Streets of Gold” could have been directly lifted off an early Bon Jovi album, complete with lyrics about a mythical poor boy named Johnny and small-town girl Shelly and their dreams of making it in the big city. It’s also a damn catchy rock anthem.
Powerzone is a worthy follow-up to Chez Kane and fans of her first record will find plenty to like on the new one. There seems to be some tighter chemistry between Kane and Rexon on their second effort together.
“I feel like the difference between the first and the second album is that Danny and I know each other a bit better,” Kane said. “We've become really good friends and he's got a better understanding of of my voice. I've got a better understanding on how he writes. Because at the beginning, we didn't know each other when we started the project. He just contacted me and we were going to see if it worked, and it did work. We clicked straightaway and everything just happened really naturally. So, I feel like we're growing. Our working relationship is growing in the right direction. It's like the first album was our baby and now it’s growing up.”
Kane has a clear idea of her audience with the solo records she’s made with Rexon.
“If you love the kind of 80s-feel music that was real feel-good back in the day, with the likes of Lita Ford, Vixen, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard — all rolled into a little ball — I think that's what it is,” Kane said.
Find out more about Chez and order her music at www.chezkane.com. Powerzone will be available digitally, on CD, and on limited edition colored vinyl — gold on Kane’s website and silver at the Frontiers Music online web shop. The album drops Oct. 21 but you can preorder now.
Track List:
I Just Want You
(The Things We Do) When We’re Young in Love
Rock You Up
Love Gone Wild
Children of Tomorrow Gone
Powerzone
I’m Ready (For Your Love)
Nationwide
Streets of Gold
Guilty of Love
For my full interview with Chez Kane, please check out the video below and consider subscribing to the MRC YouTube channel. The conversation is also available on episode 80 of the MRC podcast, available on all major platforms, and includes a few brief clips from the album. In addition to discussing the making of Powerzone, Chez talked about some of her early influences, how she and her sisters formed Kane’d, her touring plans, dealing with negative comments, and much more.
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