Band:	Furious Zoo
Album:	Furioso IV
Style:	Heavy metal
Website:	http://www.hantson.com
Release date:	2008
A review by:	Jeff

01. Get Out Of My Way
02. Rock Messiah
03. The Furious Zoo
04. H Bomb Child
05. Down On The Street
06. Tonight
07. No More
08. Tough Enough
09. Dangerous Game
10. S.E.X. (In Need for it)
11. A Dead Man Won't Lie
12. Playing The Game
13. Break Away
14. I've Heard The Message

Renaud Hantson is active nowadays. With Furious Zoo or Satan Joker, we see a lot the French singer (and drummer!). We're still not touching the point of saturation, so of course that's always good to learn that a new release written and produced by our guy is out. Today, we will not talk about Satan Joker's come back but about Furious Zoo's (his parallel project) last and fourth effort, "Furioso IV".

"Furioso III" was released two years ago if I'm not wrong, and obviously Furious Zoo seems to be a really productive combo. The problem is that I have the feeling that the band doesn't really try to do something different, they only produce the same kind of Hard Rock from one album to another. The surprising good point here is that even if it's not new or different, the groove is still here and the melodies are still catchy. I suppose that you already understand what I mean, "Furioso IV" is not new, not surprising, not revolutionary or anything, but in the genre this is one more time really good. The songs are groovy yes, they're melodic and technical (the guitars soli are impressive one more time), modern and everything. So ok, Furious Zoo members don't try to do something different but after all they're really good to do their melodic groovy Hard Rock so what's the problem?

The performances of the guys are excellent, the voice of Hantson is perfect and he is not worst when it comes to play drums. Benoit Cousin and Cedric Le Coz are both excellent musicians too and if you don't know them yet, you'll discover that they're at the top level of the French Metal musicians. "Furioso IV" is also well produced (probably better than the previous releases), and definitely more modern than "Furioso II" which is a good point because it means that the band is improving. No the only problem is that it just follow the road started by the previous album, so it's cool because it was already good but it could be good too to have some surprises sometime which is not the case on this release?

"Furioso IV" is a really good and varied album of melodic Hard Rock but don't expect anything new if you use to listen to Furious Zoo. At least even if it doesn't change a lot, this is good and that's probably the only thing that you'll have to remember. Have a look at this album, if you're into cool 90's Hard Rock, you shouldn't be disappointed.