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James Durbin, who I had never heard of, though he apparently competed on American Idol at one point, now has a second project to go with his eponymous band. This new one is called Cleanbreak and the debut album, Coming Home, contains a collection of smooth, ‘80s-style hard rock/heavy metal with a modern production. He’s got help from other noted musicians, including Robert Sweet from Stryper on drums and Mike Flyntz of Riot V on guitar. That gives the smooth, melodic metal on Coming Home a bit of perspective and raw black and technical death stalwarts can probably stop reading now, if they haven’t already when I mentioned American Idol. The songwriting is very accessible with loads of licks and hooks and even a little crunch. Bands like Fifth Angel, TNT and Icon are going to give you a good starting point for what to expect from Cleanbreak. It is definitely not the heaviest album you’re going to find, but if a swim in the hard rock end of the heavy metal pool every now and then isn’t out of the question, it should do the trick.