John Dallas
Love & Glory

I think that this guy John Dallas is a pretty confident fellow, considering that I doubt that many would name a song in their own name. I wouldn’t, not that I am a songwriter anyway, but if I was. Love & Glory is the second album by Dallas, the first one was glorious according to the press material and some specialised press, but what album isn’t these days? The cover kind of tells you what to expect, commercially built rock music of a kind that has been done quite a few times before this one.

I guess inspiration comes from the arena rockers of the past, with grand compositions and catchy songs all well suited to be sing-alongs from a big stage. The originality is nearly non-existent, but I guess doing a song called John Dalles is at least some convoluted way of making something of your own, but the song itself isn’t particularly original. The sound is at least good and modern, something that could set it in a more relevant light than some of the older similar stuff – but then again, originality is quite an important aspect as well. It is all kept sensible in terms of the playing time, and that is a good thing as it is always great to avoid making the listener bored from overstaying one’s welcome.

I find this to be a good album, with catchy and entertaining songs, decent hit potential through the album. But to really make an impact John Dallas would have needed to make something more creatively interesting or have even better songs as I see this one as a good but also fairly easily forgotten album. He plays it far too safe; you need to risk something in order to make the great stuff, playing it safe will only make you an average also-ran and never a winner. Johan Dallas is confident; he knows his craft and has a strong commanding attitude in his music. It works and I am sure this will be great live, but it is not a memorable album and that is a very important aspect when you review an album.

You can enjoy Love & Glory, it has its highlights like Drive Me Tonight, and perhaps even the song called John Dallas. Then as much as you enjoy it, you will also easily forget it as Dallas doesn’t offer anything that we haven’t already heard done better by someone else, it will never be a recipe for great success to emulate others, you have to bring something original otherwise you will be like John Dallas; another artist some will enjoy for a while, but no one will remember.

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