Coastland Ride
Distance

The story of Coastland Ride begun in the Swedish town called Sundsvall twenty years ago and now the trio of musicians have completed a trio of albums. The first of these albums was released in 2003, it was then rereleased at the same time as the band released their second album in 2011 and now in their twentieth year we se this album that has been given the name Distance. And they show that Sweden has musical talent in abundance when it comes to the westcoast/AOR genre and these guys are clearly on par with most of their genre colleges in terms of quality and colourful choruses. They also have a good-looking logo and decent artwork, two things that also can be seen as positive from a marketing standpoint.

When you read that they are on par with their genre colleges you probably see this as something positive but if we change the wording (but not the meaning) to many genre competitors the view probably change a bit. They are no standout band; they press the right buttons with catchy choruses, good production, good vocals, strong melodies and songs, kind of like the genre is about. That is probably also what will prevent them from being really noticed, they don’t surprise and their music don’t make you stop in your stride and take notice. It is good, no denying that but so are most of the AOR I have heard and it is against that they are compared. One thing that doesn’t help either is the long playing time that passes the fifty minute mark, which is one or two songs too much.

I think that they are very good; they know what buttons to press and how to make solid songs that you can sing along with. The thing is though that so does most of their competition and plenty of them make it at least as good and a very select few makes it a lot better. They are like buying a dull but safe model car, it does what you want and you get what is promised. I wouldn’t be surprised if these guys drive Volvos, probably white ones. Distance is more or less exactly what I imagined when I saw that I had been sent this promo, before I had even heard the album some of the songs on it were already done to death in my head. It is a good but very predictable and also very forgettable album.

They don’t even have a standout hit song; although it has no weaknesses either so they are a bit safe and boring… they are quite Swedish. Fans of AOR probably like this a fair bit as it presses the right buttons for them and no one can deny that it is good so you probably wouldn’t be disappointed if you bought the album. But in the end, it is forgotten when the music ends and therefore I cannot really give them anything else but a rating in the middle of the scale.

HHHHHHH