Updated 22nd July 2003

Valensia - Mars Electric - Mark Spiro - Pride - Michael Sembello - Sethian - Newman - Eric Martin - Tim Feehan - Thunder - Ramos - Zebra - Jesse Damon - Pain & Passion

All reviews by Andrea Bertamino except where noted

VALENSIA "Queen - A Tribute" (Avalon) Rating: 100

Valensia is a highly talented Dutch musician who over the last decade has built up a successful career in the Far East, and now he has been presented with the opportunity to pay tribute to probably the greatest band the United Kingdom has produced to date.

Having been a Queen fan since seeing  "Bohemian Rhapsody" on TV as an impressionable and goggle eyed five year old, and having had the misfortune to hear other tributes to Queen, which have involved the usual suspects and low budgets whizzing on a Picasso ( anyone else recall Lemmy's gargle fest version of " Tie your mother down"? Nightmare!), thus despite being a fan of Valensia's work I approached this whole exercise with a certain apprehension.

From the opening bars of  "Sheer Heart Attack" this is obviously a labour of considerable love, as the man remarks in the liner notes he "misses 'em" (and don't we all!) and a chance for Valensia to really revel in the atmosphere and unalloyed exuberance that Queen created. Of course, most will head straight for the Mona Lisa of rock 'n' roll that is "Bohemian Rhapsody", and like me they will be stunned by Valensia's musical and vocal performance. He nails it. Close your eyes and it just could be the maestros themselves, his voice taking all the attributes of messrs Taylor May and the messenger that was Mercury.

"I'm in love with my car" and "We will rock you" are spine tingling, but Valensia is at his best on songs such as the confessional Led Zeppelin meets Noel Coward "Liar", or the Richard Dadd camp of the still glorious " My Fairy King", and Minelli metal of "Killer Queen" where his vocals really come into their own. Other gems include a version of the Eddie Howell song that Mercury produced " Man from Manhattan" and what a marvellous song it is , too good to have languished in the shadows as it has. The first major tour Queen embarked upon was with Mott the Hoople, and thus it is appropriate that Valensia has approached the iconic "All the young Dudes"  as if Mercury had. It's a stunning arrangement, especially vocally, and should be released as a single.

Simply put this album is a work of art,and it sees a considerable musician lavishing the care and thought that the whole project warrants.

If as rumoured May and Taylor want to tour as Queen again, they must ignore the claims of the likes of Robbie Williams or Jeff Scott Soto, and get Valensia in. He can be the only option. Brilliant.

Andrew Paul

Mars Electric's debut "Beautiful Something" seemed the ideal medium for a melodic rock return to the mainstream, with it's classic songs wrapped up in a forward looking production and a cool image, along with the backing of John Kalodner's Portrait label. Naturally nothing happened, Portrait's failure to promote the album meant the band paid the price for the label's failure( interesting logic as ever), whilst the band's image upset a good number of people who may have otherwise relished the music.

2003 sees the band reappear on Atenzia, a new label that realises musical life did not cease in 1990, with "Fame amongst the Vulgar" which picks up where the debut left off, being a rich confection of timeless melodic rock songs bursting with hooks and invention, as on the Cheap Trick meets Trio pop of "Disco King".

"Descend" is a power ballad by any reckoning, and "Baby's got a brand new life" is a huge slice of modern Americana, with a hook to die for and a sussed Butch Walker meets Harry Hess vocal from the ever excellent Jacob Bunton.

Good Charlotte would give up a year's supply of hair gel for a melodic off hand rocker like " Did I say too much" while "Don't say goodbye" is U2 after a month ingesting Marvellous3.

If Butch Walker and associated nu-breed shakes your tree, or you care more about hooks than haircuts then buy this album.

Andrew Paul

One of the most appreciated and reknown songwriter of AOR (John Waite, Giant, Heart, Bad English, etc) and outside it (Julian Lennon, pe) signs for Swedish label Atenzia and comes with his sixth album and twelve new songs where he plays everything but the guitars, they’re up to Tim Pierce.

"KOC", with a production worth of the now usual care by Atenzia, will make very happy the fans of this gifted artist who stands in balance between AOR and pop using, when needed, to refined and liscious sounds as in the delicate and romantic "Julia" and "Everybody Needs" (the latter somehow closer to Oasis) or in the more dynamic and electric AOR "Saving Grace" confirming the superior level of Mark in his preferred game, the melodic and classy rock.

The songs are almost ballad-oriented, suspdended across midwest rock, pop-rock and AOR, in a continuos coming and going of relaxing and lovely vibrations, crystal clear arrangements, wamr vocal parts straight from his heart with no false step.

My rocker roots wuold have loved more uptempo (in fact there’s the only "Saving Grace"), but at the same time I cannot remain stone cold in front of such great artistic quality and I reccommend you to surrener to the charming waves of "Just Another Freak", "It’s All About You", "Why Wait For Love ‘Til You Die" and the remaining pearls offered us with so great generosity.

http://www.atenzia.com

I liked Pride's debut "Far From The Edge" (2001) and now I meet'em again with the difficult task to at least reach the same quality expressed before, but the six-piece is talented and will please its fans and those who will come.

Opener "Could You Believe" will please people that like good melodies with a strong electric background and is quite differente from the following mighty melodic class metal "Somewhere, Someway" supported by a lively rhythm section and by the flashy guitar solo of Chris Green. The fury gets calmer in "Story Of Our Lives" and in the rockers "It's Just Me" and "No Reasons Why" that are more than fillers and offer a good contribute to the overall quality of this cd that has in "Say You're Not Lonely" one of its first important moment, a good mix of AOR and class rock.

"Learn To Fly" and "I.O U." have tougher and heavier sounds, so as "One Time Around" recalls the style of debut album, the acoustic "Heaven's Waiting" is an emotive slow whose vocal (by Matt Mitchell) and acoustic guitars (Green, Mitchell and Adrian Johnson) lines are perfectly sustained by the discrete and essential Ivan Gunn's keyboards.

The last word is up to "Still Raining" starting with only voice and acoustic guitar, grows soon in intensity into an epic heavy ballad with a long solo by Green.

A good guitar oriented album!

Now almost fifty years old, Michael Sembello comes back with some new projects and meanwhile here it is this collection featuring eleven songs out of thirteen taken from his previous albums, while I have no idea if the remainint two are new or else.

The sounds are obviously those of the original years of release going from 1983 to 1997, and it’s the drum to reflect mostly the origin of the older tracks, so I’ll describe this cd in chronologic order.

"Maniac", originally featured on "Bossa Nova Hotel" (1983) and then a huge success with the "Flashdance" movie, is here offered in a new and softer version, typical of refined nightclubs, but also if different it’s enjoyable. From the "Without Walls" (1986, among the musicians there were Steve Rippley, David Boruff, Vinnie Colaiuta, Steve Porcaro, and Bobby Caldwell) album we can hear "Tear Down The Walls" (tough and rhythm AOR tune), "What You Really Want" (AOR with a refrain quasi westcoast) and "Burn It Up" (kind of attempt to renew the success of "Maniac").

Six years later it was time of "Caravan Of Dreams" (1992, Jennifer Batten and Tim Drury played here) and we can hear the refined and romantic ballads "The Winter Of Our Love", "Black Rain" and "Where Are We Now?", the pop/soul of "Heavy Weather" (formerly featured on Diana Ross album "The Force Behind The Power", 1991). Five more years and Michael released "Backwards In Time" (February 97, released as Sembello, with Vinnie Colaiuta, Greg Bissonette, Greg Phillinganes, Nathan Watts and Dave Boruff helping Michael) from which the mid tempos "The Life Of My Broken Heart" (performed also by Jeff Paris) and "Rub The Stone" (across AOR and the more refined pop) are taken.

"One Planet, One People" comes from the project "The Bridge" (it should be about’96 or ’97) and is another slow tune allowing Sembello to show his most passionate and intime side. I don’t know where "Love Doesn’t Live Here Anymore" and "Voodoo" come from, anyway the former is a catchy AOR tune like Richard Marx and Michael Bolton (of his more melodic rock period) and the latter is techno-AOR oriented, a genre that I don’t love particurarly.

Waiting for new steps, this "TLY" is a useful guide for those who want to learn more about Sembello’s music that has been crossing two decades.

http://www.michaelsembello.com

In Sonata Artica & Nightwish, Finnish label Spinefarm have two gems, and one suspects that given time, in Sethian, they may have further need of a decent jewellery polish.

Imagine if you will or dare, a combination of Queensryche brooding elegance circa "Empire", a vocalist in Wilska combining the best of lower range Tate and Pete Steele, with the pop phrasing of A-ha's Morken Harket, and a guitar team in Jusso Koporen, Jusso Jaamaki, and Marc Kautonen combing fluid melodies, rippling swathes of rifferey, along with a gift for brevity.

Opener "Nothing is True" is very Ryche, yet with guitar flurries that echo Neal Schon of all people, while Wilska's resonant tones dominant proceedings before sweeping up into a hook from the Nightwish school of drama and melodic intent.

"Dream Domain" is "Empire" carved from the heart of the Nordic twilight, though the piano scored "Love under Will" with it's Lizzy guitar harmonies and sweeping melody would make better radio fare. "Too far gone" spins a memorable identity of it's own from it's Queensryche, Paradise Lost and Journey vocal harmonies( really!) components, and demonstrates that Sethian have mastered the art of taking their influences from a wide set of sources to create a vision of their own.

The potential is here for something special, but that is for the future. As things stand "Into the Silence" is one of the most satisfying albums heard this year.

Andrew Paul

As sad use of the English label, I have the promo album with only the titles of the songs by Steve Newman (vc, gt, keyb) and his band, with whose eleven songs he wants to keep growing as done since now.

The first two songs ("Save Me Tonight" and "Last Known Survivors") are pomp/AOR anthems like White Sister, Bad Habit and Giuffria, with strong and melodic vocals, mighty keyboards and big gutiars, so it's good as appetizer!

"Masquerade" slows the pace and adds to previous influences a rhythm like Sons Of Angels, but from "Rivers Flow" on we're back to ‘normality’ with a substantial homogeneous quality standard alway rich with catchy and melodic vocals, a chronometric rhythm section, keyboards in abuncance, guitars that alternate flaming solos to tiny single notes.

Somehow as in the case of Ramos, Newman don't offer nothing really new (or at least it sounds so if your age/curiosity has let you know some miliar stones of the genre released in the '80s), but here I feel and hear a greater indipendence from some iperused writing chemes (that are Journey), at least a small try to explore the pomp/AOR ground adding hints from the American school to those of the North European one. More, there's no filler here.

If you want to know a scene that lived a huge moment in the second half of the '80s and you cannot get the albums of White Sister and Giuffria, then with Newman you'll find a good fellow.

"Pure" is an 8-tracks mini-cd with almost thirtysix minutes of music and the video of "Fly", bonus track in the Japanese edition of "I’m Goin Sane" and here performed in a different version.

With this mini-cd Eric covers in an acoustic key his musical career playing with David Simon-Baker (ac. gt), Mark Chole (bs), Denise Martin (dr) and Taylor Cutcomb (keyb) the eight songs the first of which si "Sucker For A Pretty Face" from the self titled album by Eric Martin Band. You’ll find also "Bigger Man", "There Goes The Neighborhood", "Kisses Stain", "Pictures", "Big Love" and "Promise Her The Moon", so also the years with Mr Big are included.

There’s no doubt that the final result is pretty fine, that the sound is good and that these songs are interesting and enjoyable also played ‘unplugged’, that it’s a way to milk money from the fans givind them something of particular, but personally I’d better have seen this mini-cd as a bonus-cd of a brand new album by Martin.

The fatal choice is yours.

No mistery about the new cd released by famous AOR singer/songwriter Tim Feehan, the title says it all and announces a collection of unreleased tracks or anyway far as original release date. The album is pleasant, flowing and doesn't hurt the Feehan's more than twenty years of honoured artistic career, althought Tim hasn't reached the personal success wished, even if he had the chance to collaborate to OST (such as the James Bond series) and won some award in 1987.

All in all "TIFA" stands below the standard of albums like "Full Contact" (MCA – 1990) and "Pray For Rain" (Westcoast – 1996), but this is quite to understand because mostly these songs remained unused in his previous releases, not always for low quality.

I'm pleased to listen to Feehan singing a duet with Mike Reno (Loverboy) on rocking and simple "Call Of The Wild", to run the lines of an anthemic and tough AOR (a little like Loverboy) like "Dive" (a song with the same title appears also on "Full Contact" but I these days I haven't the chance to verify if it's the same one) and "Mind Over Matter" or those more usual like "Don’t Need An Invitation" (Jason Scheff on vocals) and "Gates Of Heaven" (not so far from the classic Stan Bush).

The only "Forever Mine" (a tasteful slow number) justifies the ‘Westcoast rock’ label given by MTM to this cd whose sound is not worse then the one of so many ‘regular releases’ by the European AOR labels in these years and as songwriting is more than nice, but not at the best levels reached by Feehan.

http://www.mtm-music.com

"SATS" is the fifth studio album for reformed Thunder who had 18 singles in the English Top althought they never had a massive airplay, witnessing a solid base of fans that followed the band in its discographic adventures and that now will salute Ben Matthews (gt, keyb), Chris Childs (bs), Danny Bowes (vc), Harry James (dr) and Luke Morley (gt) and their eleven new songs.

As songwriting, Thunder give no surprise and move easily in the hard rock blues grounds adding a lot of melody and pleasing who appreciates the English band, while those who never had them in sympathy will remain cold.

The dark and thounderous mid tempo "Loser" starts the album recalling the debut "Backstreet Symphony" (1990), followed by the cheerful and useless "Everybody’s Laughing" inspired by early Whitesnake, while the first chords of "If I Can’t Feel Love" seem to copy the immortal Bad Company's hit "Shooting Star" and actually the nice blues rock of this ballad is not so far from Paul Rodgers' band.

The paced titletrack brings back electricity and the attitude to write energetic British hard rock blues tunes and also the moody "A Lover, Not A Friend" is quite nice, but the will to take off is killed by "The Pimp And The Whore", another useless rocker like "Shake The Tree" suffering of too many Led Zeppelin meet Bad Company chains.

"Somebody Get Me A Spin Doctor" at least gives a little of fresh happiness recalling their early days and its banal simplicity is enough to solve its task to entertain, and also semi ballad "The Man Inside", deeply in the ‘70s, is quite good thanks to the passionate singing of Bowes who marks the ending "Blown Away" starting tiny and acoustic, growing in intensity and flowing into a strong refrain.

The sheet with the cd-sample states that the official cd will include also an interactive video and two European bonus tracks (no mention which they are), the whole in a luxury digipak, but the music, what really matters, is enjoyable, not enthusiastic.

Another new band debuts using the name of guitarist Josh Ramos (The Storm, Hardline, Two Fires) joined by Mark Weitz (vc – Malice, Eyes, Odin), Michael T.Ross (keyb – Accomplice, Hardline), Atma Anur (dr – Two Fires, Richie Kotzen), Scott Snyder (Accomplice), Russ Greene (keyb), plus the famed and virtuos bass player Stu Hamm (Joe Satriani, Steve Vai) guesting on "Tell Me Why" and "Winds Of Change".

The genre is a ‘80s AOR similar to Journey and The Storm, with voices and choruses particurarly close to Neal Schon’s band, safe from every possible contamination and rich of harmonies, catchy refrains, the right balance between energy and melody, a guitar like Neal Schon, so... (almost) everything we want from such an album, but also nothing new!

If Journey and The Storm wuold have never released an album, we might talk of a nice and honest cd that works fine (not the sound, too ‘80s that have gone since 13 years at least, or maybe the fault is of one Mr Shortarmed), with perfect instrumental parts, nice arrangements, a really good singing by Weitz, chourses built to please at first spin (and often they do it!) and no really fillers (maybe only "Tell Me Why", "Night Has Fallen" and "Come Back To Me" are below average).

Unluckily, though AOR is not the most experimental genre ever existed, there are too many ‘already listened before hooks’ and I don’t see particular reasons for an AOR fan who own the complete discography of Journey to buy this "LITL", and it’s anyway a pity because songs like the titletrack, the fine slows numbers "The Dream Is Alive" and "Love Is The Magic" or the uptempo "Take It Or Leave It" are really pleasant to listen to, and the same goes for the ending instrumental "Willie" (dedicated to Josh’s brother) showing the passionate and nostalgic side of Ramos here really next to the solo Neal Schon solista (I’m talking about "Late Nite").

At the end, if you want to listen to some pure and easy AOR, so you’ll be happy with this album, but if you ask to AOR something more of the countless tribute to Journey, you better put your old albums by Perry & Co on your turntable (they have also a better sound!).

The seed of next to come Zebra was sown in 1972 when Randy Jackson (ch) and Felix Hanemann (bs) broke their collaboration with Shepard’s Bush, but the debut arrived only in 1983 followed by two more due studio albums who helped comparisions with Rush and Triumph for the technical level (and the high voice of Randy whose hidden dream is to emulate Robert Plant) reached, but fans never gave Zebra the wished success and the band remained without deal, even if Atlantic in 1990 will release a good "Live".

Randy will come back with some collaborations and overall with China Rain and The Sign, before accepting the Frontiers’ offer to be back in saddle again with the original line-up, recovering also former drummer Guy Celso.

Randy’s voice hasn’t changed much compared to his early albums and also the music remains the same with that mix of Rush, Led Zeppelin and Bad Company without much of that AOR paint played on "3.V".

"IV" is opened by "Arabian Nights", an hard rock inspired by Kingdom Come with far eastern sounds, followed by "Light Of My Love" (featured also on China Rain’s "Bed Of Nails" and here re-recorded) and "Who Am I", a semi-acoustic song in pure Zebra style.

"The Angel’s Calling" moves along the road opened by Zeppelin, "KK Is Hiding" is an average hard rock blues, "Free" and "My Life Has Changed" were written in 1975 and to recover them after almost thirty years smells of lack of better ideas, anyway "My Life" is pretty nice. "So I Dance" is quite nice and the long malinchonic ballad "Waiting To Die" has jazzy arrangements undelined by the sax and is one of the most interesting track of this cd, with ending and average "A World Is Learning" and "Why" emanating sounds well known to Zebra fans but these are not the best song ever written by Randy.

Really below China Rain and The Sign, the come back of Zebra needs several spins to be better understood (and the instrumental portion is really good and solid), anyway the final result is nothing memorable and in my opinion "IV" is the last as release and also the last as quality in Zebra’s discography.

After fronting Silent Rage, Jesse Damon goes solo with this cd with the help in songwriting by quali Paul Sabu, Teri Timms and Gene Simmons, the instruments played by Jesse himself (vc, gt, bs), Todd Herreman (keyb) and Sabu (programming, bs).

Opener "Gotta Let It Go" (originally written for Cheap Trick) isn't the best way to enter in touch with the album (years ago I played keyboards on a song written and recorded to make practice with drum machines by a guitarist friend of mine: it was a joke made in few minutes, but it had a far better sound!) and also the performance is lazy and poor. Things get slightly better with "Bad Bizziness", class rock with keyboards, and bust with the AOR semi ballad "Love Isn’t Love" worth of Sabu's writing tradition and also Damon sings better.

A gospel chorus introduces and comes along "Lay The Blame" with a particular and compressed instrumental background hard (to me) to describe, and I like it! I'm not convinced by the rocker "Do You Feel Lucky Tonight" and the mix of Bon Jovi and Inxs offered in "Help Me", then we have "Everybody Needs Somebody" written with Gene Simmons and it's a class rock among Kiss and Black’N’Blue but nothing sensational.

Really better the decise AOR songs "Dear Sanity" and "Someone Like You" strongly related to the '80s with usuas and needed catchy voices and melodies that also "Heart Of Love" tries to bring along, but it's too worked and loaded with sugar!

The useless and unhearable (as sound) "Something To Believe In" closes a cd with too many fillers and whose few good intuitions are made less brilliant by a weak production that has to grwo above all in the use of drum machine.

http://www.jessedamon.com

PAIN & PASSION "Pain & Passion" (Escape Music) Rating: 40

I confess I don’t know anything about band, when and why it was formed, who plays here also because I got the promo cd with the only titles printed on its surface. And if the label is so interested in promoting his artists, in this moment I have neither time nor will to get infos around the net.

And then the name of the band reflects the sensations I felt hearing these ten songs because I’ve been totally bored by that monotonous, flat and obsessive heavy rock, only the sound is better than many previous releases (re-issues not included) by the English label.

Sometimes I think I’m dealing with a minor band of the NWOBHM ("If I’m Not There Tomorrow" or "Could I Walk Away" and "Won’t Tell You Anyway" the last two with very similar riffs: had they been listed far from each other), or with a psychotic pace coming from smoked people ("What Really Matters", "Nobody Listens To The Old"), and more with a little attempt of melody ("Waiting For The Day", "Don’t Think Tomorrow").

A look at the ‘80s sleazy rock ("Get Ready", "A War Within") without conviction closes a cd totally useless to me, boring and irritating, so pleas save your money for other albums looking also at the indipendent scene.