aaamusic | On 13, Feb 2011

‘Rendered Waters’, the upcoming collection of 3 scintillating new tracks plus 8 newly re-recorded gems from the seminal early days of classic hard rockers Kingdom Come, released March 28th on SPV / Steamhammer, is nothing other than a stunning, landmark album. Vocalist / main man Lenny Wolf cherry picked 7 songs from Kingdom Come’s first three albums, plus one from his pre-Kingdom Come LA-based outfit Stone Fury, and cut mesmerizing new versions at his Two Square Noise Factory Studio in Hamburg. His intention was to bring them bang up to date; “I purposely chose tracks from the very early days to show how we play, hear and feel the songs nowadays,” says Wolf. “Listening habits have changed dramatically, especially among the younger audience, which made it exciting for me to breathe new life into numbers which have not been heard for a while.”

‘Should I’, the first single to be taken to radio, is this time played more slowly, the drums are more open and the guitars, according to Lenny, feature a more tube-oriented sound and warmer, more driving tone, which hugely adds to its appeal. “Of course, you can only change songs to a certain extent if you don’t want to lose the character and central theme of the original version” notes Lenny. Similarly ‘I’ve Been Trying’, ‘Pushing Hard’ and ‘Living Out Of Touch’ haven’t been reinvented, but all three have a noticeably new approach to them. On the other hand, Lenny changed the verse of ‘I’ve Been Trying’ completely, giving it a different arrangement, in the same way as he transported the song ‘Seventeen’ into the year 2011; “‘Seventeen’ has always been kind of a key song for Kingdom Come, yet it has never received much attention since it has a very non-commercial approach and is either loved or hated, but with the new version it will hopefully get the recognition it deserves.” And rather than re-recording former hits such as ‘Get It On’, ‘What Love Can Be’, ’Do You Like It’ and ‘Twilight Cruiser’ which put Kingdom Come on the map on a global level, he selected the song ‘Break Down The Wall’ from his pre-Kingdom Come days back in 1985 when he played with LA-based band Stone Fury. ‘Rendered Waters’ also contains three totally compelling new songs, ‘Blue Trees’, ‘Is It Fair Enough’ and ‘Don’t Remember’.

Kingdom Come were formed in 1987 in Los Angeles around hugely talented German vocalist / guitarist Lenny Wolf, who had moved to America to pursue his rock ‘n’ roll dream, and had already tasted moderate success in Stone Fury. Their debut self-titled album, released in 1988, reached number 12 in the US charts, went gold in America, and charted high all over Europe. Its successor, ‘In Your Face’, similarly charted high all over the globe, let alone in the UK, where it debuted at 25 in the national album charts. While 1991’s ‘Hands Of Time’ was critically acclaimed in the core metal press, by now grunge had taken over the US rock world and in 1993 Lenny relocated to Germany, where Kingdom Come have always had, and continue to enjoy, a huge following. In Lenny’s words; “Kingdom Come is my calling. I either fall or rise with it. Apart from a few bad decisions, I’ve done alright. Thankful and still fully loaded, back to the future.”