01. Turn
02. Stand Strong
03. Straight
04. Best Friend
05. Breakin' The Chains
06. United
07. I Will Be There
08. Defenders
09. One Day
Line-up:
Greg Sweet - Lead And Backing Vocals
Dave Van Liew - Guitar, Backing Vocals
Kevin Antholt - Keyboards, Backing Vocals
Kevin Whistler - Additional Drums, Percission
Brook Lizotte - Additional keyboards
Doug Larson - Bass, Backing Vocals
Watchmen's "Fear No Evil" on the compilation album 'Underground Metal', was heavy and strong. Unfortunately this is not nearly as heavy but does contain some excellent songs. Kevin Whistler, now the drummer for Bloodgood plays drums here while Les Carlson turns up on backing vocals, so Bloodgood seem to have been quite heavily involved in the album. I Would put Watchmen in the same category as Bloodgood, not quite metal but rather very hard rock.with a touch of AOR, keyboards playing a large part on the album.
There are three softer songs, two of them making use of sax, which doesn't quite fit/Best Friend" also being far too sloppy for a rock band. "One Day" is the best of the slower songs making use of piano and electric guitars. All in all a competent set.
With the meaning of its name taken from Ezekiel 33, Watchmen formed in the Seattle, Washington area in the mid-eighties before releasing an eight song demo entitled Fear No Evil and placing the tapes title track on the Underground Metal compilation. Following up in 1989 with its full length Regency Records debut entitled Generation,
Watchmen plays a commercially accessible form of melodic hard rock certain to appeal to fans of Angelica, Guardian, Bloodgood (All Stand Together era), Stryper and Shout. The exceptional lead vocal abilities of Greg Sweet bring to mind other talented vocalist such as Tommy Keifer (Cinderella)Les Carlson (Bloodgood) or even Ronnie James Dio.
Guitarist David Van Liew proves equally talented, adorning the album with an abundance of sharp sounding and blues influenced lead Guitar work. / Keyboardist Kevin Anholt does a good job adding just the right amount of texture to the Bands sound. The top notch rhythm section of drummer Kevin Whisler and bassist Doug Larson, however, end up being held back by the albums production problems. A muddy production job with slightly bass heavy sonics prevents Generation from reaching its potential.
The Rhythm Guitar comes across thin and transparent. The rhythm section more often than not gets buried in the mix. Only the lead Guitar rises above the instrumentation as it should. An effective mix of rhythm guitar and keyboards drives "Turn" forward until vocal harmonies enter the mix as it approaches a chorus with a good catchy hook. After the song stops dead in its tracks, Van Liew follows with twenty seconds of bluesy lead Guitar work. "Turn" talks about turning from the darkness to the light: