Edge
Heaven Knows

Escape Music proudly announce their new Swedish act Edge and their debut 'Heaven Knows' as a really good way to start off 2013, but you wanna hear something funny? I just noticed that I'd played this album 18 times the other day but no matter how hard I tried I still couldn't remember what it was that I'd heard. Sure, some of those 18 times is a result of Edge being next in line from David J Caron, whom I gave a good review not too long ago, but regardles of how many times I've played this album beginning with this album or not, I'd still heard this album 18 times and couldn't remember a thing. So what's the problem with it?

Well, I'm not completely sure but I have a few guesses and I will return to that later on. Firstly though I want to point out that this really isn't a bad album and it's an album full of melodic rock created by some swedes you may or may not have heard of before as some of them has been around in other bands. With Tommy Denander on the guest list helping out with a guitar solo we all probably know what kind of music this album gives us - melodic AOR. Well no surprises to that in the music and with its eleven song 'Heaven Knows' gather 44 minutes of it and most of it also in the same vein with the same tempo, and despite playing this 18 times I've been forced to write this review playing the album as I write to even be able to describe it for you...

The album start off with Little Girl, which is a pretty anonymous mid-tempo song and this then is the recipe to more or less the entire album with the only exceptions being Get Over It and I Could Never Live. The keyboards that opens the song is something that seems to increase in time and place the longer in to the album you get but that's probably the only thing increasing with the album. I think the album peaks somewhere around track four and the song Get Over It, which is a duet sung with Martina Edoff, and perhaps also Right Now but I never really get that enthusiastic about this album and I think the main reason for that is the lack of real hit songs or hit-potential material. There's just nothing really overwhelming or ear-catching on this album, most of the album is good but just sounds more or less the same and all though I get the vibes from all the big bands in the genre - likeToto, Foreigner and Journey to mention a few - Edge lacks the charisma that these bands have and that special feeling they all give us. And the problem with that is that when you remove this theres just not that much remaining. You wont suffer listening to it but neither really appreciate it when you do and it's definitely not enough for this album to stand out in this overcrowed genre they call melodic rock. And when you don't do that, very few will even remember your name regardless of how well you've done it.

I'm not completely sure of what it is that causes this problem with anonymity for Edge on 'Heaven Knows' but they do exist and I'm sure I'm not the only one to think that it takes the edge of the bands material. As the band have the name they have it's almost tragicomic how the only issue with this album seems to be that they haven't got the edge. Apart from that I think the album sounds good in more or less every way - the production is perhaps not the best one ever but definitely not worth complaining about, instrumentally they all play well and also the vocals sound pretty good (but I wouldn't consider rating Jonas Forss as a top vocalist). But the song material is just not living up to this, I never really enjoy it and neither do I remember any of it afterwards. 'Heaven Knows' is decent album in my opinion, nothing more - nothing less.

To summarize shortly I think this album isn't something you really need to have but if you like this kind of music and stumble upon it some day, or think you haven't got enough music that sounds like this despite owning all the big bands albums, then you probably won't be disappointed if you decide to take it home with you.

HHHHHHH