Pink Cream 69
Endangered

2001 was a difficult year for everyone. The attack on the Twin Towers and a world in full crisis, at war with everything that was "east". Obviously, as I am not a historian, but just a simple guy who "tries" (and I admit, with poor results) to review albums, it's preferable to talk about music, right? (if I talked about girls, one review wouldn't be enough!).

In 2001, Pink Cream 69 released the follow-up to the excellent Sonic Dynamite, namely Endangered. But this sequel is not up to par this time. Not that it's a mess like Change, eh? It's a transition album, where PC 69 moves towards a more melodic hard rock leaning towards AOR, the songwriting is more refined, and the power influence is increasingly less present. The clothes worn by our heroes are rather tight-fitting, not in all the songs, but in a good part, you can feel that the album is definitely forced with a crowbar! Too much haste? Yep, it might be, and it's known that haste is a bad advisor.

The intro with a cappella choirs (Sistine), pleasant, which strangely is titled with much originality "Intro", leaves room for one of the album's highlights, the successful "Shout", in which, oddly, Zafiriou's drums dominate, besides Readman's vocal trademark, though I must admit that, overall, the whole band does a good job (see the bass break halfway through the song). Nice start, but what about the rest? "Promised Land" sounds like a leftover from the current Giant, sickly sweet melodies for some little guitar riff dropped here and there and keyboards tossed about. It goes decidedly better with "Trust The Wiseman": a rather rhythmic song, with excellent riffs by that big German Koffler, as well as the now indispensable presence of the much underrated bassist Dennis Ward. We make a blank shot with "Don't Need Your Touch", and here come the famous forced attempts I mentioned earlier, as Pink Cream tries to delve, with terrible results, into the world of melodic hard rock. One in the chamber for the nice "He Took The World", with a machine-gun vibe that hits the target perfectly (it actually sounds like a military parade song! It has a certain vibe of Def Leppard's Rock Of Ages... I bet Pink Cream chewed up this album just like I did!). Awful "Enslaved", a stale power track highlighting major compositional shortcomings. A real filler! And after a semi-mess, arrives the melodic and wonderful "In My Dreams", a fantastic arpeggio and a soft fabric (I feel like I'm at the market) of keyboards accompany nearly the entire duration of this song, and indeed towards the end emerges one of the most beautiful melodies ever created by the band. A passionate song that almost moves you to tears. "High As A Mountain" and "Shadows Of Time", which are closing the album, are rather cold songs, unfortunately lacking the impact they should have, although the former is almost decent. In the end, we have the delightful Who cover (in true Pink Cream style, of course) of "Pinball Wizard" and the semi-ballad serving as a bonus track (better than many songs included on this album) titled "One Time Is Not Enough".

Endangered is certainly not a masterpiece, I think you've figured that out. It's a halfway job, it is, despite having a few arrows in its quiver. It's enjoyable, but not indispensable in my opinion. Then we'll have to wait 2 and a half years to hear something new under the name PC 69, and this time it will be worth it with the (finally!) solid Thunderdome from 2004.