Kingdom Come Album: “Kingdom Come [Bonus Track]”

THE BAND: Lenny Wolf (vocals), Danny Stag (guitar), Rick Steier (guitar), Johnny B. Frank (bass), James Kottak (drums & percussion).

THE DISC: (1988) 10 tracks clocking in at approximately 48 minutes. Included with the disc is a minimal 2-page foldout containing song titles/credits, band members, and one black & white band photo. Recorded at Little Mountain Studios, Vancouver, BC. Label - Polygram Records.

COMMENTS: "Led Zeppelin clones" as many will say... and, sure, I agree. But Kingdom Come wrote some damn catchy songs on their debut album - easily their best album. I wore this vinyl record out upon its release. Their most successful song to date "Get It On" was a slow & heavy, guitar shredding, voice squealing hit. "What Love Can Be" was the other song that made it to the airwaves - a slower, bluesy romantic heart-wrencher... sung perfectly by Wolf (Robert Plant would surely be proud). An acoustic moment in "Loving You" (a moderate rip off of Zeppelin's "Going To California" perhaps). And, my favorite track is the John Bonham thumper "17". If this doesn't rip Zeppelin off, nothing does. If you close your eyes though, other big-haired leather-clad bands from the 80's come to mind... Great White, Skid Row, Kix, Britny Fox, White Lion, etc. All good bands of the time with high-pitched singers... and Kingdom Come deserves to sit on the same shelf with them. Why some made a bigger dent than others surprises me. I thought Kingdom had what it took to be a player, but they quickly faded out of the spotlight (with that being said though, looking on their website I see singer Wolf went back to his native Germany and in the 90's reassembled - the band now has almost a dozen albums to their credit). Song writing, touring, management and promotion were solid... but my guess is the band's chemistry was lacking... the band was thrown together (members from Pennsylvania, Kentucky, California, and Germany). Remastered in 2004 with one bonus track - I've heard it and am not impressed with the sound quality at all... so I'm sticking with the original. A solid rock album - fits perfectly in the late 80's hair/glam genre. This Kingdom Come debut deserves to be in a loftier place than the bargain rack (4 stars).

yeah yeah, Led Zep clones, blah blah blah. If I didn't like it then it wouldn't matter who they cloned. I've heard much worse by newer, 'original sounding' bands. It rocks, my ears like it, end of story.

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You have heard it before, this band really sounds like Led Zeppelin, so what ? This is a very good rock album, of course, if you like Led Zep, you should like it a lot. A good addition to your rock cd collection !

Only die-hard Led Zeppelin fans are likely to remember the late 80s band Kingdom Come, and they're likely to remember them with distaste. Critics called them "Kingdom Clone" which, while pithy, isn't totally fair. Not every song on the "Kingdom Come" CD sounds like Led Zeppelin. Only the good ones do. The rest are generic and forgettable 1980s pop metal.

Yet I'm almost tempted to give this one 4 stars rather than three. Almost half the CD features vocalist Lenny Wolf doing his best Robert Plant imitation, and he does a pretty darned good job at evoking the Curly Haired One's androgynous moans and shrieks. "17" is good rocker with a stuttering Jimmy Page-style riff, "What Love Should Be" is a nice bluesy takeoff on "Since I've Been Loving You," and "Loving You" is a stunning ballad that could (almost) pass for a mid-period Led Zeppelin outtake. "Loving You" also has gorgeous mandolin and acoustic work, proving that Kingdom Come - unlike most Led Zep wannabes - were smart enough to remember that Zeppelin's albums almost always contained surprisingly pretty folk influences.

Kingdom Come's "incredible simulation" of Zeppelin really falls apart on the hit single "Get It On" however. There's a directly plagarized riff from "Kashmir," guitarist Danny Stag clumsily quotes blues cliches, and that highly compressed snare-happy drum sound has none of Bonzo's sexy, stammering groove. It's the musical equivalent of a Beatlemania tribute band losing their wigs onstage.

Still, those three songs are worth the price of admission. If the rest of the CD were like them, I'd give this one 4 stars without a pang of guilt. Before any Led Zep purists object, let me remind you that Zeppelin were infamous for pilfering entire blues songs and claiming they were either "tradtional" or group creations. I'll forgive Kingdom Come due to Led Zep asking for something to this to happen through bad karma. I just wish Kingdom Come had come into their own right and truly found their own voice.

Kingdom Come CD is an awesome blast to the past crusin in the car with the sterio blastin' a definate have to have for 80's metal memories