Rage Of Angels
Dreamworld

Collaborations between AOR artists is starting to become the new thing for the rock genre. W.E.T. is one example, Impera is another and the other day I got some news that said frontiers are planning to release a whole bunch of albums from old icons within the genre collaborating during 2014. Rage Of Angels is also a sort of collaboration with a whole bunch of more or less familiar faces from the genre getting together and recording this album. I guess the closest relative to Rage Of Angels would be Phenomena that released their sixth album last year, on the same record label and with some of the same people and with a sound very much alike Rage Of Angels. However, this far from a Phenomena copy and with this hour long album Rage Of Angels proves that familiarity isn't always for the worse - collaborations can be good.

Rage Of Angels is the creation of Ged Rylands that has been produced and released by Escape Music. In the guest list we find plenty of familiar names that have added both skills in vocals and guitars to the album. Most of the songs exceeds six minutes but I really haven't reflected over the lengths when I've listened to either the songs or the 60 minutes long album and the only reason why I even mention it is because normally 60 minutes and songs reaching up to eight or nine minutes is a dangerous path to take but Rage Of Angels have succeeded in making it work because all the way through to the concluding We Live, We Breathe, We Die (which definitely is one of the best tracks on this album) they hold my interest level high. I think the best track in this lot is the eight minutes long Spinning Wheel, sung by Danny Vaughn.

There is nine tracks of the albums ten that have vocals and on these nine there are six different vocalists that has contributed with their voice. The risk by doing this is to get an album that fails to feel as a unit but the benefit is that it's pretty difficult to get an album that repeats itself, which becomes even more difficult when you consider the seven guitarists that plays on this album. Most vocalists and guitarist does, however, only play or sing on one or two songs each but that can be the difference between making something different or not. Fortunately they make them different enough without going too far with it and I think the album feels pretty united, something that of course is helped by the fact that the six vocalists that sing on 'Dreamworld' have pretty similar voices so you don't really react too much to it being so many - even though you hear it of course.

If you tell me to stop being so positive and begin to criticize 'Dreamworld' then I feel the one thing that catches my criticizing ear is the keyboards on this album. Ged Rylands is guested by six different and five guitarists (beside him self and Martin Kronlund that are considered as "in the band") then why couldn't he let a keyboardist play the keyboards on this album? I'm not saying that because Rylands play the keys bad but it sounds way too simple compared to the other stuff on this album and hence feel a bit misplaced. I can't tell how, but I'm pretty sure a real keyboardist would find a way to make it sound better because something's missing in the keys and that's actually the only thing I feel have a need for improvement.

The songs are good, sound is good, the album feels good and all individual performances are also good. It's not often you'll hear AOR that feels like something extra today. There is so much AOR released today but most of it just sounds like… well, like everything else. I'm not saying Rage Of Angels sounds radically different to all of this, but there is something special about them. Something fresh and interesting. Maybe the opera-ish kind of way with all the voices and mix between different things from eleven guest musicians all getting enough space to be noticed and heard? Maybe, I don't know… but 'Dreamworld' definitely feels like one of the best AOR albums you'll hear in 2013. Melodic rock when it sounds it best!

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