Dare - Blood From Stone (1991)

*U.K. first pressing. 

Contains 10 tracks total.

Country: United Kingdom
Genre: Hard Rock
.FLAC via Mega (Link)
.AAC 256 kbps via Mega (Link)

© 1991 A&M Records
Reviewed By Melodic Music Reviews.wordpress.com
Blood From Stone’ is England based band Dare’s second album and easily thier most commercially accesible album.

Fronted by Thin Lizzy keyboardist  Darren Wharton, Dare is not an easy band to pigeonhole into a particular genre. They started out in a pure melodic rock/hair metal sound, as evidenced by this album, and then moved into a very Celtic sound yet still very much in the melodic rock genre, though a much softer side of it. I really know of no other band to compare their sound (now) to, though occasionally Ten has some of the same elements, in fact Vinny Burns later went on to join Ten.

Back with the release of this album they were doing very commercial sounding records and this one stands among their absolute best. Songs like ‘Surrender’, ‘Lies’ and ‘We Don’t Need A Reason’ are superb examples of this genre in top form. Perhaps some comparisons to a ‘New Jersey’ era Bon Jovi could be drawn here.

Wharton has an incredible voice that is full of emotion (which fits extremely well with the band’s style these days) and is utterly fantastic on everything he does. Vinny Burns is a hell of a guitar player and also sounds excellent here, as always. Cox, Clutterbuck and Morgan round this band out at this time period and prove the talent that was in this band during that time. A phenomenal group of musicians to be sure.

Granted, the band’s direction in sound after this album is not going to be for everyone, but through a few line-up changes, Darren is still releasing fantastic albums to this day with Dare  that are head and shoulders above most stuff being released.

While the softer stuff the band has released since may not be your cup of tea (though you most certainly owe it to yourself to at least try it because it is indeed stellar stuff), this album is a perfect record of pure melodic rock, with no small dose of hair metal, at it’s absolute finest. You will want to check this one out. A criminally underrated band and a kick ass album of superb rock ‘n’ roll.

Highly recommended.

Standout Tracks:

We Don’t Need A Reason.

Surrender.

Lies.

Live To Fight Another Day.

Real Love.

tags: dare, blood from stone, 1991, flac,