Edge of the Blade
Feels Like Home

Melodic rock is a genre that just keeps growing, it keeps feeding the world with new albums and new bands. The duo Edge of the blade made their debut in 2015 and now I am checking out their second release called Feels Like Home. It is a title that probably fits well, the cover isn’t exactly marvellous, but is there any sharpness to Edge of the Blade?

The members of the band have been in bands we have reviewed before, Shy and Afterhours and it isn’t too far-fetched to draw parallels to those bands. In fact, you can draw parallels to almost any band of the melodic rock or AOR type of music. It is built around strong melodies and choruses; the great production and singer are positive aspects to this production. I really like the singer who has both emotional resonance and a great voice, but the ideas aren’t exactly the freshest and most original out there. It is an album that gives a fairly typical selection of songs and doesn’t bring us anything unexpected, even at forty minutes the playing time is too much, and I keep thinking that it should have been shorter.

This album is pretty good, the best songs like The Last Time and opener Santa Carla are great and really enjoyable to play. The problem is that it isn’t a standout release, and it doesn’t really make much of a mark. It isn’t a memorable album, that is mostly because it lacks a sense of novelty when the impression is more like listening to a compilation of older songs rather than a fresh and new album. The problem with the ever-increasing numbers of albums within the AOR genre is that it devalues the quality of the albums and the vast majority of albums released in any genre will be mediocre almost no matter how good they will be. So, a mediocre AOR album is still fine to listen to but I doubt you would ever select to play such an album above something you actually like.

The usual suspects will like this, buyers will most likely not be too disappointed with their purchase. But acceptable isn’t the same as memorable, or great, it is one of those albums that will be gathering dust in the shelves of those purchasing it. I don’t believe that anyone will think of this as one of the memorable releases of the 2020s, perhaps it will be mentioned as a footnote or something, but that is also unlikely. I know I will throw this album away from the digital library and forget all about it now that this review is finished, I will replace it with a new album to review, hopefully that album will be more novel and interesting than this one.

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