Henning Pauly is better known as the man behind the Frameshift project and his main band, Chain. In these works, Henning has shown us with his work so far that he is one of the better multi-instrumentalists within the progressive metal genre. Now with his second solo album, Credit Where Credit is Due is a homage to the heavy metal genre, especially the output of nu-metal bands such as Linkin’ Park and industrial metal bands such as, NIN.
Most of the album deals with running themes of being accepted and getting proper credit for one’s work within the music community, hence the title of the album. The whole album has a nice flow to it up until the untitled bonus track, which should have been left off or done in a multi-media format. Maybe this is a private joke from Henning especially with the all German narrative passages. Since I don’t speak or understand German, I have no clue as to what is being said.
On this album, Henning could have used any number of vocalists he’s used in the past but he chose a unknown (to me at least) vocalists names Juan Roos. Henning describes Juan’s voice as a blend of Geoff Tate and David Coverdale. This is a pretty accurate description without coming off as a copy-cat of those two greats.
As said before, if you’re looking for a progressive metal album here, you won’t find one but if you’re a fan of Henning’s guitar work, you’ll enjoy the route he takes on Credit Where Credit Is Due. One day I’d really like to hear him do something in the less crunchy chug-a-lug style he’s known for, or even the long awaited Baby Steps project I heard so much about.
Reviewed by Ron Fuchs on January 28th, 2006
