Niva
Magnitude

For a release to have an impact of any significant magnitude it needs to have some traits like originality, quality, simplicity and depth which is something very few of the AOR genre has. Many band are quite good but lacks on the side of originality and this is something that Niva does as well. The third album by the Swedes led by Tony Niva has a sexy looking cover artwork and some trademarked AOR tunes to boast about. Nothing new and nothing original has trickled down to their album though, which is a shame.

Talking about the style we are dealing with a band that has thumbed through AOR For Dummies many times to create those typical AOR songs. It is catchy choruses, übermelodic, cheesy and overproduced just like described in that book. And Niva has a vocal style in the higher pitches which is quite customary in the AOR genre. I would say that this album lacks originality, it is very well produced and the sound is nice though. The singer is good as well, not only as the genre code describes. When the album opens with a track that is so predictable that it is scary how I could describe the song structure and style of the solo without ever having heard the song. There was however one chorus less in the ending of the song than I believed it would be so they had at least something unpredictable. The album feels a tad on the long side despite being a second short of the forty minute mark.

I think this album has some major flaws: it lacks originality and it lacks variation as well making the album quite uninteresting. I think that in a way it sounds like rejects from “insert-AOR-band-of-choice-here” that has been very nicely produced and well presented but they still feel like rejects. Another analogy can be to say that taking a poorly composed photo without any interesting subject matter and giving it wonderful colours, it seems good at first glance but you grow bored quickly. It feels a bit soulless and devoid of really clever stuff, but that is not entirely true as there is a song that I find quite wonderful.

The second track Perfect life may be a bit NSS lyrically but at the same time it is just excellent, catchy, not overly repetitive like the opener that I was bored with the first time I heard it. “There is no perfect life - there is no perfect wife - and there is no perfect man - just try the best you can” talk about stating the obvious but with such a wonderful song it does not really bother me. I really love this song, too bad that besides Do it Again there is no other song that does anything for me. I find this album a bit of a paradox, such brilliance combined with such dreariness. It is difficult to really fathom why that is, but it is like that which is why I cannot really recommend this album despite its flashes of brilliance.

But do not despair as today you can always buy the good stuff and leave the not so good behind, which is what I recommend in the case of this album as there are two tracks that I have already mentioned that are great, the others are boring. If you have heard as much AOR as I have (it is my favourite genre), I am quite sure that you will share that opinion. Shame really that Niva couldn’t make all the tracks close to the level they achieve with the best stuff on this album.

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