The Last Act

Reviews

A handful of reviews. The top of each section shows which disc is being referred to:

Disc: No good Deed…

Fresh Sounding Album

Metal Nose Magazine
It is a tough job to come up with origonal music in this day and age. Still, some bands manage to present a fresh sounding album. The Canadian The Last Act ended up in my CD player and offered just enough to stay there for some time. The four gents of The Last Act mentioned on their website tob e inspired by bands such as Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath and Kiss and this typical 80s hard rock sound is heard on their second album No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.
Especially the melody lines and the vocals are very in the vein of Iron Maiden, although I did pick up some Sabbath influences. Fortunately they do not come off as a Maiden-clone, more like a fresh version, as I was not overly impressed with their (Maiden) last two albums. The Last Act has recorded the album independently and you can hear that in the production, which is not entirely spotless. But they bring their music with such enthusiasm, that I forgive them that.
Next to a fine rhythm section in the persons Stan Engelage en Shawn Speirs and the somewhat Ozzy like singer Colin Murphy, guitarist Jeff Larsen stands out the most, with his solid riffs and great solos. But, honestlky said, the music of The Last Act does not stand out. The album has a balanced sound, but the excellent play of the band make this a good album to listen to.
Still, a few songs deserve some extra attention: ‘Slave to the Memory’, is like making a journey back in time, to the 70s…with a nice crunch in the guitars and good bassplay. And the last song, ‘Struggle’ is definitely one of my favorites, because of the passion, that just drips off. The songs has a bit slower pace, but that adds to the dark atmospheer.
It is these albums that make it fun to discover new music. As far as I’m concerned, it does not all have to be as perfect as Dream Theater of Ayreon, as long as it is played with heart and soul and that is definitely the case with The Last Act.

Fantastic Band!

Strutter Magazine
Out of Canada comes THE LAST ACT, a fantastic band, whom have a sound of their own, which is very melodic Progressive Metal. Opener “Broken dawn” of their full-length professional looking CD ‘No good deed goes unpunished’ is a lovely melodic progressive metalsong, which has a ot 80s QUEENSRYCHE, FATES WARNING, RUSH, but above all a real HEIR APPARENT/LEATHERWOLF kinda approach. The song has fantastic melodies during the catchy chorus, accomplished by beautiful harmonyvocals, some awesome guitar shredding and it also reminds me a lot of HARMONY PARK, another US indie band I reviewed last year. Anyway, 11 songs are included, and from start to finish this sounds like a very impressive record, which needs to be checked out by all progressive metalfans. Besides the fantastic opener, other highlights include “Vision”, “Slave to the nerve”, “What are you waiting for?” and “Guilded justice”.

Faithful to Hard Rock

Blokner Magazine
(*note: this has been translated from Serbian, so …
(*note: this has been translated from Serbian, so it’s a little “broken”…apparently the Serbs love us =P)
The CD’s of Canadian group The Last Act which I received, was a pleasent surprise to me, and also one of the better issues, which I reviewed in last few months.The Last Act are a group from Calgary area, they are quartet line-up, and musically they are faithfull to hard rock.Yes, basically it’s a hard rock, but also with strong elements of progressive hard rock with clear influences of the 70’s. They released two issues till now, and no doubt that “No Good Deed Goes Unpunished” deserves only recomandations. The Last Act introduced themselves with 11 songs, with strong approaches, hard riffs, and the music who are in the crossing beetween 70’s and the 80’s.Even that band itself, and some journalists as a main influences counted sounds of groups/artists as a Led Zeppelin, Ozzy Osbourne, Kiss, in my opinion,The Last Act music reminds me mostly on American-Canadians acts from the 70’s and the 80’s, as a : Triumph, Starz, Goddo, Montrose, Riot. But in complete conception, , Canadians offer their own dimension, seen in expressive vocal parts, clever arrangment’s works, and modern producing methods. “Good Deed Goes Unpunished” gives strong effort to the other similiar acts, who are on the same genre’s field.

immediately I love it

Vampire Magazine
This Canadian band released their second album and to be honest immediately; I love it! No deed goes unpunished is a true progressive hardrock album that takes you back to the old 70’s and early 80’s sound. Inspired by bands as Ozzy, Led Zeppelin, Iron Maiden and the old Rush, The Last Act have been able to produce an album that brings on a vibe as on Ozzy’s “Diary of a madman” album. In a time where music is getting more and more agressive, complicate and innovative it’s a relief to listen to an album like this. Everything on it seems to be perfect! The most remarkable element in the music seems to be the singer. My first reaction was like “that’s Ozzy Osbourne himself…”, and after a while I heard some very young Rob Halford in it and now and than the name Mark Oseguada (Death Angel) popped up in my head, but still he gives his own twist on it. So it’s clear that the singer has a hell of a voice, wow! And after I calmed down from that positive shock, my ears seemed to be more open for the rest of the band. Perhaps it’s normal that a first impression is been made according to the vocals, but it is not totally fair to the other musicians. These three guys now how to rock! All instruments enforce eachother by being played very supple and naturally and therefore the total sound of the band fits and feels right. In the additional information, given with this promo, it’s been said that in case of lack of time to listen the whole cd man should try to listen to “Broken Dawn”, “Full volumage”, “The memory” and “Struggle”. I think this is very modest, but also bullshit! People should check out the whole album! Of course those mentioned songs give a good idea of what The Last Act is about, but what about fantastic songs like “Guilded justice”, “Slave to the nerve” and the title track? Rocking riffs, accelerations in tempo, clean guitars and vocals, little elements of violin, keyboard and some female spoken words (Arwen from the LOTR movie?),it’s all there! Do I have totally none negative points? Yes I have. The artwork deserves something better, this layout has a bit cheap look.

I don’t understand why this band has not been contacted by any labels so far. Is it because of todays standards in music? In my opinion real hardrock/heavy metal is timeless and it will always keep a certain fanshare worldwide. It does not fluctuate with mode or what is hot on one moment. So people who still have that straight rock/metal spirit, check this band and keep your eyes on it!

Genius!

Maximum Metal
Every year I come upon a couple really great hard rock bands. Sweden’s Mother Misery and their formidable ‘grandiosity’ hit early capturing the breadbasket sound of the American Midwest. With the year almost over, The Last Act’s second album provided the bookend to 2004 with ‘No Good Deed Goes Unpunished’. After an oddly shimmering opening instrumental, ‘Broken Dawn’ lights up the CD with a crisp, raw sound reminiscent of 1979-82 when the 70s gave way to the harder-edged 80s and speed and hair were mostly underground thoughts. The rock sensibility here is so perfectly done that I’m convinced that somebody in the band is a musical genius or they’ve all spent copious amounts of time listening to early Ozzy, Riot, Leppard, Zeppelin and the pummeling of Cream drummer Ginger Baker. Colin Murphy’s vocals have an odd early-Ozzy tone (made better with slight vocal treatments) and a couple numbers–Full Volumage and Guilded Justice–sound like the production budget was already busted, but they’re easily forgiven with the loose, painful jams of ‘Struggle’ and the fantastic title track. There’s plenty of rough edges for a label/company to file off and some inconsistencies to grow out of, but overall The Last Act is a class hard rock act and one of my favorite independent CDs for the year.