Angels or Kings
Kings of Nowhere

AOR Heaven, the genre is easy to guess and their albums are usually quite impressive or quite boring. This looks to be the latter judging by the cover. But never judge a book by its cover, and speaking of books. This band was documented well in a book called Life in the Bus Lane, they were active in the eighties but never released any album. Now many years later and with a new vocalist they are releasing their debut, I guess one can see that as a mark of love for the genre that they finally make this album after som many years when they have been apart and so on. It can be a less god sign as well, depending on how you look at it.

Musically we are offered exactly zero surprises, the band do everything by the book. Catchy choruses, melodic guitar lines, ballads and all of that. A singer fairly typical of the genre, not the best I have ever heard. Production is according to the format, kind of boring with no surprises there. Long album as well, not much variation and almost an hour of playing time. That means that the album tends to feel quite long, you might loose focus during the long playing time.

It opens with a track that will make the AOR-fetishists aroused, for me it raises warning flags and I find myself hoping that this is an exception and the rest of the album is less cliché and less paint-by-numbers. But it isn’t, it is more of the same and I find myself loosing focus, dreaming myself away to other things. The conspiracy theories come up, why is that logo familiar? Are they really a real band and not just AOR-profiles making parody of themselves? And soon, as it all turns out it gives me a bigger sense of déjà vu than the Iron Maiden song with that name, haven’t I reviewed this album already? the answer turned out to be no. But I had to do some research on the Hallowed website to come to that conclusion.

I loose interest quite fast and zone out from the album, it doesn’t grab me at all and I begin thinking of ways to write a review about some other album. But then I woke up from the sleep and thought: ”hey this sounds quite good”. Unfortunately for these guys I noticed when looking in the music program on the computer that the following album in the playlist had started. So the best thing when listening to this album the last time I heard it was that it ended and a better one started. I think may not be bad but it is seriously flawed, you cannot just copy stuff from others and expect to make something decent, and that remains true no matter how much you love your music. I have heard this a million times before and the pile is growing and growing and growing. This album stands out as much as a Philippine stand out in Manila, you need to do more than that.

The title track stand out as the most uninteresting track on the album, the rotten tomato award for that song. And no track stand out in a positive regard, guess the AOR-fetishists should look up this album but the rest of you will do better with some of the earlier releases of this label, things like 220 Volt or Miss Behaviour comes to mind as good choices. Not the most interesting album i have heard is the conclusion, not that bad either.

HHHHHHH