TNT - My Religion

*=Staff's pick	Invisible Noise* She Needs Me* Lonely Nights* My Religion Give Me A Sign* Perfectly You'll Be There* Flow Live Today Everybody's Got A Secret Everything U R Song 4 Dianne* The Last Word

Genre	Hard Rock	Tony Harnell	Vocals
Tracks	13	Ronni Le Tekro	Guitar
Runningtime	50 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	MTM	Morty "Black" Skaget	Bass
Release	10 March 2004	Morten "Diesel" Dahl	Drums
Country	Norway	-	Keyboards
Similar artists	Tesla, Pump

Classic Norwegian hard rock act TNT must probably have been one of the first hard rock bands that came out of Norway and reached outside the country's boarders, it took me many years before I heard another Norwegian band after I first discovered TNT. Their selftitled debut came in 1983 and with My Religion their eighth studio effort is a reality, and it is a good one.

The music is easy to take in and is ongoing melodic hard rock when it is at its best, you only need one listening before it all sits in its place. With the start of the album it is one good song that is delivered followed by another equally good or even better, the exceptions on the album are to my delight few. With the first three tracks you get a pretty damn good start with strong melodic tracks that sends you on your way, solid tracks with a great melodic sense that sticks to your head immediately.
The guitar from Ronni Le Tekro is on top and the playing feels inspired, something that I believe you can hear in Lonely Nights, with its really playful guitar-works, that song really brings a smile to your face.

And the highlights doesn't end there, the energy and playfulness carries on with a nice bass line in You'll Be There, an up-tempo track that is quite hum-along friendly, my definite favourite on this album and one track that I hope they will bring along to their live performances, think this one should be suitable live. You'll Be There is the track that I feel is the most complete track on the album with the mentioned bass, the strong guitar-line and the good balance with the vocals and the music.
Give Me A Sign is another track that I would like to see live, a midtempo track with heavy drums and a constant pulsating rhythm, it gets really powerful with a great drive as the strong track floats on by.

So far so very good, but the albums slows down a bit with the sugar-sweet ballad Perfectly. It gets away with the grade ok, barely, but not much more in my metal ears. Of the two ballads on My Religion I would chose the softer and almost melancholic Song For Diana with female guest vocals, that one appeals to me much more than the first one. And as we move on, the track Live Today is a bit too simple as they towards the end of the album seems like they would have run out of ideas, but Everybody's Got A Secret is in fact the only track on the album that falls out frame. The peppy Everybody's Got A Secret sounds like the soundtrack from a cheesy comedy from the eighties that takes place in a sunny environment, I guess it is the way the keyboards sound and the ooh-aah-ooh touch at the end of the peppy refrain that does that I just cant take that track. Nothing that bothers me though, since I can manage pretty damn well with the those songs that are good, and as they are good enough to save any album it is enough for me.

My Religion is extremely well done in all places, although it fades a bit at the end, nevertheless all tracks are well worth listening to with the exception for Everybody's Got A Secret. I haven't really kept trace of TNT since their release of Realized Fantasies (1992),but if the albums in-between has been equally good as this one I better check them out as well.

Production	Vocals	Compositions
7	8	7

Summary
7,5 chalices of 10 - Thomas