State Cows
The Second One

The Second One, clever title for a second album. State Cows, weird name for a band, especially one in the Westcoast/AOR genre. The album cover is fascinating, it is exciting and the album seems to be exciting on face value with many prominent musicians from the melodic rock world performing on the album. That must be a recipe for greatness, that is something it could be but many albums with great artists just become boring and bland genre typical albums. But there are exceptions, like our Rockford Heroes who takes the classical and do their thing. Then we have many others who don’t so where does these guys fit into that equation?

Well, I would say that the cows are more in the same league as The Heroes than any of those dull bands I don’t even remember. They have excellent sound and their music is catchy and simple to take in. Not very original but all the performances are excellent and the ten tracks shows off some great quality recordings. The album plays for fifty minutes and is fairly varied during these minutes, and it is an impressive recording as I stated before and it stops at 1981 which feels just about right for their stylistic approach albeit with a bit more modern flair of course.

This is an excellent album! I could stop there as there isn’t much more to say. The songs are excellent and the production brilliant and it has all an album of this genre needs. Still, it does not really offer anything we haven’t heard before and that is of course a little bit negative on the rating. Still, you cannot fault this album, just like you have to admire the album by the heroes earlier this year, none of them are unique but both of them are great. The heroes are better than the cows but this album is great and I will keep it on my music player despite me being done with it now that I have written this review. It is that good, and I can also point out that not many albums are being kept after they are reviewed.

I have really enjoyed listening to this album, I really find it excellent. All the tracks are very good but In the City, the second track, stands out a little bit extra as that shining beacon that draws you into this band and their music. Well worth spending fifty minutes to listen to and well worth recommending to anyone into melodic rock. So, remember the name State Cows the next time you shop for music.

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