Band:
Stefano Lionetti (Lead & bg Vocals, guitars)
With:
Lars Säfsund (Lead & backing vocals)
Alessandro Del Vecchio (Keys & bg vocals)
Pierpaolo "Zorro11" Monti (Drums & perc.)
And:
Mario Percudani (Guitars)
Andrea Maddalone (Guitars)
Anna Portalupi (Bass)
Amos Monti (Bass)
Discography:
Debut
Guests:
Arabella Vitanc: Lead & backing vocals on track 8
Erik Mårtensson: Backing vocals on track 4
Bruce Gaitsch: Guitars on tracks 1,3,5,9,11
Tommy Denander: Guitars on track 8
Sven Larsson: Guitars on tracks 7,9
Info
Alessandro Lionetti & Gregor Klee: Executive Producers
Produced, engineered, mixed & mastered by
Alessandro Del Vecchio for Ivorytears Music Works
All Songs Arranged By Stefano Lionetti & Alessandro Del Vecchio
Released 10/6-2011
Reviewed 13/8-2011
Links:
lionville.it
myspace
avenue of allies
Stefano Lionetti is the bloke that started up the Lionville project, inspired by AOR he wanted to do something of his own in that genre that was as powerful and foundational moving. The idea ended up as a band along with Alessandro Del Vecchio and Lars Säfsund as well as some guy calling him self the eleventh Zorro (Pierpaolo Monti) and together they wrote a whole pile with songs that they started to record with a dozen of other musicians and on the sixt day of creation they had created Lionville. Lars Säfsund has already received his bouquet of roses this year as he sung on the debut album of Enbound (6/7) and despite Lionville being fundementally different compared to Enbound, good old "Lassie" sings just as good on this album but here he's not the only guy letting his mouth go nuts because Mr Lion wants to put his fingers in whatever hole they can get inside of which means he puts his voice wherever he can and when Lionetti sings it can't be defined as anything but the true definition of "Broken English". beside him there's also Arabella Vitanc from Alyson Avenue and Erik Mårtensson of WET. Together with a bunch of other musicians, most notably Mr I-have-been-on-every-AOR-album-released-the-last-ten-years - Mr Tommy Denander, the true AOR sound is as complete as putting a picture of an orange on a box of orange juice.
Honestly though, I do think this sound extremely AOR, it just shout it out loud - I'M AOR!!!! It sound late 80's or early 90's, just like an AOR-album should. You have the strong choruses, the nice verses, tailored instrumental parts without bragging and show-offs and the vocalists have butter soft voices that makes rainbow seem aggressive. Everything put correctly on places where they could and should be. With this album Mr Lionetti has his hopes set as high as the Eiffel tower on arousing the somewhat comatose AOR-genre back to life and I think he comes with perfect timing. The AOR-genre is definitely about to wake up, many new and old bands are releasing albums at the moment and we see them appear more and more in public as well. Lionville does their music brilliantly - it's well composed, played without stains and no apparent flaws anywhere. But at the same time as the album feels like a solid craftsmanship I can't help felling that I doesn't love the piece.
A few of the songs are really good, but none of the songs get stuck in your head. I can't tell why they don't but it's like the music is just a pinch too shallow and "influenced" instead of composed. Every song feels familiar somehow and the melodies seems recycled and no matter how good it sounds, it never hits me like babe Ruth - away and awaaayyy, I'm blown away and fly around taken by the song structures I've never heard before. But not here… This album is "only" really good - not fantastic. It's well written, well made AOR the way it "should" sound but I'd like to hear more of the heart and soul of those who did the album, not music as it should sound. But let's not get stuck on the negative, because there's actually not much to say on that subject.
The best songs on this album are Thunder in Your Heart, The World Without Your Love, Lower of My Dreams, The Chosen Ones and Over and Over Again. None of the songs are even hinting bad and I'm pretty sure you'll like this album if you like melodic music with good vocals and strong choruses. This album is consistently really good and I see it as a safe bet for any AOR fans out there!
HHHHHHH
