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Rating: “Strength is in numbers”, meaning in the group: and what better image to symbolize it than the pack of wolves on the cover, noble animals that have, deeply engraved in their DNA, a collaborative and hierarchical spirit, so much so that they struggle greatly to survive alone.
Tyketto means nothing; it was just graffiti scrawled on a New York wall that someone in this New Jersey band thought sounded good. The four band members sound good too, and they deliver serene and positive hard rock; thus out of fashion in 1994, the year of the release of this second album and the focus of a period when depression and suffering were the trends in rock.
The excellence of the album is the second track, “Rescue Me”, a slightly funky hard rock track but with a monstrous groove, thanks to all four—bass, drums, guitar, and vocals. Every time I listen to it, I am astounded; it’s truly explosive, justifying the album's possession and carrying along the other songs, as sometimes happens on albums.
Leader Danny Vaughn sings well, solidly. Guitarist Brooke Saint James never shows off and instead focuses on substance, with great rhythmic ideas and almost no solos, or when present, brief and compact. Great sounds! The producer is Kevin Elson, who a few years earlier had made the second work of the similar Mr. Big, “Lean Into It”, sublime.
This album had to be released on a secondary label because the multinational they had signed with had switched to grunge full-time. Recorded in 1992, “Strength in Numbers” timidly reached store shelves two years later, after which the frontman's wife fell ill with cancer, and the good Vaughn, a true man, left the group and stayed home to care for her until her death.
Then he returned, took the reins of the group again, and released a few more records, managing to maintain a small cult following (while the first 1991 work had gone platinum), a following in which yours truly is included, having had the pleasure of seeing them perform, excellently, in Bologna in front of one hundred and fifty deserving fans.
People with guts deserve better fortune, as do their wives. Tyketto's first album “Don’t Come Easy” is surely the best, but this one also does well.
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