Snowfall
Cold Silence

Lately Lee Small has established him self as one of the best voices in melodic rock and in just a few years he's managed to have his voice included on such albums like 'Shy' by Shy, 'Awakening' by Phenomena, 'Prove You Wrong' by Ian Danters and a solo album. As of this April also this album - 'Cold Silence' by the otherwise Norwegian Snowall.

I think Small has a really good voice and he's actually managing to make bands sound better by adding his voice and the only album I've heard with him that didn't sound particularly good was actually his solo album 'Jamaican Inn', which I thought was due to the music, though, and not the vocals. Snowfall has played together as a band for a while now and this debut album has grown together successively rather than been rushed together and I feel time has made this cold piece turn in to something very hot! In my opinion this is one of the best melodic rock albums of 2013!

Already by the first song they manage to get my attention with the classic arena rock anthem Don't Drive Me Home Tonight, followed by a nice up-tempo song called Citadel Of Home. Together, these two songs seems to rebirth the 80's and that feeling only seems to increase as they get to those really movie-like keyboards open House Of Prayer - a song that otherwise seems very close to the glam rock and hair rockers decade in hard rock. The album then continues in this vein, mixing melodic rock, AOR and glam in a healthy way. The peaks are many so it's difficult to tell which songs that distinguish themselves from the rest, but on the contrary with slopes and weaker songs I feel they have a small dip somewhere around the middle and then nothing until the final track, The Vesper Bell, that perhaps is the least interesting song of them all (but still a pretty decent track).

I think one of the reasons to why I feel Snowfall are slightly better than most bands in this genre is that they dare to break a few rules and not just play melodic rock by the book - as so many bands have done these last few years (the book being "AOR for Dummies", of course). Snowfall have a somewhat funkier sound and hidden in their music is a small touch of grandeur and there seems to be a lot of joy in doing this, at least by judging from the sound of the music. We get songs that feels like imminent hit songs as well as more technical, advanced and clever songs every now and then. I think the trio from track eight to ten illustrates the variety of the album best as it begins with the funky attitude-osing track Stampede that have some cool Satriani-ish guitars, Oscillate that comes in the middle is more of the clever kind and takes a few runs to get attached to since it has less of a hit-chorus. Last of the three is the real hit-song Alexandria, that has a true sing-a-long chorus that's very striking. The album also get a lot of plus from the keyboards that overall feels very unconventional and adds a bit of extra flare to the pack.

I think 'Cold Silence' definitely feels like one of the best melodic rock albums of 2013 but if you've checked the grades already you might wonder whey they haven't reached the top scores despite this? Well, after serious consideration and those extra couple of runs we always add to potential top scorers I've decided it has a couple of flaws that degrade them from the "excellent level". One of the flaws is that I miss just a tiny bit of bite in the sound in its present shape. It has bite, but just a tiny bit too little of it. Then there's the problem with the ending… 'Cold Silence' could definitely have ended one song earlier and I'm not just saying that because Vesper Bell is the weakest track but also because it feels like it keeps going just one track too much. I always tend to feel "here is where the album should end" if the albums goes past that line and 'Cold Silence' do that…

Still, a very high five for the band and clearly one of the best albums so far - not only when it comes to melodic rock.

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