The layering and stacking of the music and vocals transform it from mere song to pure magic. This track may be a linear, floating, even repetitive composition, but it’s not so much a ballad as much as it is a grandiose, atmospheric production piece. I’ve read the criticisms of “Wisdom” below and have to disagree. Final track “Wisdom” couldn’t have been placed anywhere else on the album.
The album’s strong points come at the beginning, middle and end, with the aforementioned lackluster songs sandwiched between those points. “Forever Shine On” is elegant Euro power metal that manages a kind of symphonic majesty, thanks to multi-tracked supporting vocals, Le Tekro’s carefully orchestrated approach, and the bigger-than-God production. It could have easily fit on ‘Tell No Tales’ amongst that album’s more metallic songs. Middle of the album brings “Forever Shine On,” assuring TNT is still a metal band, if a very slick one. The drums are big (handled by new drummer Kenneth Odiin, or a drum machine sounds like) and bright ‘80s synths throw paint slashes in and out of the song.
The majestic intro “A Nation Free” retains the band’s inescapable Nordic flavor, and then it’s into the more cosmopolitan “Caught Between the Tigers.” This song breaks down the door with a swagger and pomp that shows Harnell wielding considerable presence while leaving plenty of room for Le Tekro’s flashy fireworks. The good stuff on this album is frighteningly good. At a brief 53 seconds, in can be tolerated rather than skipped over. Yet again - and this is always the case with the band – even inferior TNT songs feature stellar vocals and guitar work, so the weaker spots on ‘Intuition’ succeed on some level.īetween the bland offerings and the album’s high points sits “Ordinary Lover.” I’m usually all for expanding an album’s depth with weird segues, unusual interludes and/or brief nutty moments (as they did on ‘Tell No Tales’), but this Le Tekro-sung track is like a big bruise on the leg of a beautiful model. I still don’t have much feeling for songs like “Take Me Down (Fallen Angel),” “End of the Line,” and the so-candied-it-makes-Journey-sound-like-Cannibal-Corpse AOR of “Learn to Love.” These songs comprise the vanilla-quotient of ‘Intuition,’ lacking the fire and urgency that exploded all over their preceding album. But some songs fail to inspire, even after two decades of living with the album. The verses are pure TNT awesomeness, everyone firing away nicely and with purpose. Seriously frilly stuff here, but Le Tekro’s Brian May-esque guitar work lifts the song up a few big notches. This is a more careful album than TNT’s previous two - less fiery, less edgy, and as a result there is something essential sacrificed in the band’s obvious bid for MTV viewers’ hearts and the rest of the hairsprayed/stonewashed denim universe of 1989.įirst, the stuff that irks: the chorus of “Intuition” is incredibly saccharine, even for my melodic metal sweet tooth. So I like ‘Intuition’ more than I used to, but it still has pitfalls I’ll probably never get over. Over the years my tastes have gotten friendlier toward extremely polished, pop-infused metal and rock. Coming off the extraordinary ‘Tell No Tales,’ I remember being let down with ‘Intuition,’ not giving it much time in 1989.
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