Band:
Lead & Background Vocals: Bobby Kimball & Jimi Jamison
Guitars & Lead Guitar: Alex Beyrodt
Bass Guitar: Mat Sinner
Keyboards: Jimmy Kresic
Drums & Percussion: Martin Schmidt
Discography:
Debut
Guests:
Info
Produced by Mat Sinner
Released 14/10-2011
Reviewed 22/10-2011
Guess what it is musically, alright you guessed correctly. It is AOR in accordance with AOR For Dummies, it is the crystal clear production, the melodies, the catchy choruses, the high pitched vocals, the keys, and the guitars, it is all there. The production is of course excellent and the sound is lovely, the songs keep to the code and are well helped by the sound of course. I think this album offers no surprises whatsoever, it is straight ahead AOR with the normal songs as well as the occasional ballad, no fancy tricks or new ideas to be found on this album. The album plays for 50 minutes almost and it has twelve tracks which as I said before are composed by the regular Frontiers composing contributors.
This album has been well received by reviewer it seems from what I have been able to gather, it is an album we just must hear, or must buy, or can’t miss, the superlatives are many as they are for most AOR albums that see the light of day today. I found one review that wasn’t super positive or completely blindly happy with the album, a more sensible AOR review one can say. Sure that was positive as well but it stated that it was a good melodic rock album, no more, no less. Guess which one I agree with, yeah, the one that is more sensible. I think this is a good AOR album, there is no denying that as the songs are good and it sounds really good. It is however, just another one of those albums, it is too predictable and it offers nothing to stop you in your stride and think. I have nothing against confining to a particular genre but when it becomes like this with all songs sounding like they were gathered from another album by one of those other bands that has been released this year, then it becomes a bit much. This album is actually so predictable that you could have looked at the cover, the personell involved and the song titles and that would have allowed you to actually sing all the songs on the album without even having heard them or known the lyrics of them, it is that predictable. Had I known this beforehand I would have been able to save a lot of time for other reviews by reviewing this album without even hearing it, it would have looked almost like this review does.
I was thinking of picking out some hit songs but after hearing this album many times I can say that there are no song that stand out as an obvious hit, the songs are very similar and equal in quality which I knew even before I heard this album. All songs are good and the sound is great so it is no loss to listen to them, but at the same time you will not be overwhelmed by what you hear, just a nod thinking it was alright and nothing more.
So in the end it is a good but very predictable album, it feels like they should look for other writers now in order to spice things up as these guys who wrote for this album feels like they have no imagination whatsoever, just standardised songs that are good but many of us will feel like we have heard it so many times before and both Kimball and Jamison were better in their respective bands Toto and Survivor. Just to summarise: Kimball Jamison does a good album, nothing more, nothing less.
HHHHHHH
