To be the son to one of the most influential Rock guitarists through all time can't be an easy task. Jürgen Blackmore have big boots to fill after his father Ritchie and I think he manage it pretty well. After the show with OVER THE RAINBOW at Sweden Rock Festival a few years back I have no doubt that Jürgen is a great guitarist. Back then he played his father's old RAINBOW tunes and did it well but may some of Ritchie's song writing talent passed on to his son? I haven't had the opportunity to listen to any of Jürgen's solo albums before so when I got the chance to check out his new project EBC ROXX I could not resist seeing if Ritchie's genes have treated his son well.

Together with the German singer Ela and the multitalented Tony Carey (ex-RAINBOW) on bass and vocals they form what themselves call a Rock 'N' Racing band. It all started when they all collaborate together on the tribute single "Silver Arrow" to the Formula 1 cars from Mercedes and they had so much fun that they decided to do a whole album together.

You might see a pattern here and yes, everything revolves around racing on two or four wheels. All respect to songs about fast cars and dangerous highways but to centre an entire album on this theme is a little to much for my taste.

Musically this is classic Hard Rock with the roots in the seventies and you can find traces of both RAINBOW and DEEP PURPLE. You can hear that Carey's groovy organ is originated from the classic RAINBOW album "Rising" while it is obvious that Jürgen have taken impression from his fathers last session in DEEP PURPLE and albums like "Perfect Strangers" and "The Battle Rages On".

Together they manage to create a really fine groove occasionally and you can find both strong melodies and great guitar riffs and there is no doubt that some songs have a really strong potential. I think this debut album could have been a really classy one if it weren't for a bunch of negative things. The first thing is that the sound is to thin and flat. The power I looking for in music like this is gone and the same thing about the vocals. Carey's harsh voice has aged well and Ela's voice is mature but none of them have any power in their throats! Carey sings pretty plain actually and Ela have everything she needs to be a strong singer if she only brings in some power. They both feels a little bit tired in all honesty.

If we then continue on the negative side we find a very poor production of the drums. Have they hired any drummer? If that's the case I have to feel sorry for that person because it sounds exactly as a bad programmed drum machine. On top of that they have decided to add different kinds of samples and even had some fun remixing some of the tracks and included them on the album. All this together makes this album crumble down into oblivion.

EBC ROXX have all the things to be something really, really good. Jürgen have obvious got some of the same riff genes as his father (even if it sounds like he steals a little bit from him) and it seems like they can write some pretty interesting tunes. The first three tracks on the album are all really good and enjoyable for example. But I think this band would have done both their self and the world a great favour if they didn't released this album and instead wrote "demo" on the cover and brought it to Joe Lynn Turner and the other boys in OVER THE RAINBOW. Then we would probably had one hell of an album that would speak to all the fans of 70s Hard Rock!