Tag Archives: aor

THE BIG DEAL – Electrified

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Serbian band The Big Deal released a very confident debut in 2022’s ‘First Bite’. Although their music wasn’t particularly original, the album’s best tracks showcased talented musicians, capable of sharing a huge sound, and whose brand of melodic rock and metal consistently hit the mark with strong callbacks to Pretty Maids and other Euro fare.

Following the album’s release, guitarist Srdjan Brankovic made a great contribution to Ronnie Romero’s ‘Raised On Radio’, but then seemed to disappear. Considering he guested on a number of albums up to this point, his relative quietness came as a surprise, but his fans will certainly welcome his return here, and find plenty to enjoy within his work on this second release from The Big Deal. Much like before, the best material places Brankovic’s guitar playing rather highly in the end mix, but there’s very much the feeling that this is a genuine band project, rather than merely just being the Srdjan show with a few in-house hired hands.

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MAGNUM – Live At KK’s Steel Mill

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In January 2024, much loved British rockers Magnum released their twenty third studio album ‘Here Comes The Rain’. The record captured a typical sound for the veteran band, but mixed the huge pomp sounds of later releases like ‘The Serpent Rings’ with more of the commercial AOR elements of their late 80s work, making it feel a little more well rounded than some of the latter day Magnum releases. The record, although hugely enjoyable, was surrounded by sadness: just a few days before release, founding guitarist and songwriter Tony Clarkin passed away, effectively making ‘Rain’ a poignant swansong.

The deluxe edition of the album was packaged with a full length live DVD – ‘Live At KK’s Steel Mill’ – featuring what was to be Clarkin’s final gig with the band. Fans, naturally, loved this show, but many hoped for an audio release to fill out their already extensive collections. In January 2025, they would get their wish.

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SUNSTORM – Restless Fight

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When Joe Lynn Turner left Sunstorm it was truly the end of an era. The arrival of the always busy Ronnie Romero allowed the band to explore a harder sound on 2021’s ‘Afterlife’ and 2022’s ‘Brothers In Arms’, but they essentially sounded like a different band. They were still capable of enjoyable tunes, but for those who’d enjoyed hearing Joe belt out classic AOR tunes like ‘Gina’ (originally recorded by Michael Bolton before he turned his back on rock music in favour of an easy listening crowd) and ‘You Wouldn’t Know Love’ (a staple from Cher’s rock period), the “new” Sunstorm might not have always hit the mark.

The band’s eighth studio album ‘Restless Fight’ could easily have had its name inspired by Sunstorm’s inner turmoil. The only musician on this record to have appeared on a prior Sunstorm disc is Romero – the golden boy of the Frontiers Records stable – who with three years loyal service can now consider himself a Sunstorm veteran. Everyone else has been a member of this band since 2023. The record label obviously considers the Sunstorm name to be of some bankable value, even if, on paper, this seems a little too close to “Rod Evans’ New Deep Purple” for comfort. Moving on from any quibbles as to how this could possibly be anything more than another Ronnie Romero album, on its own terms, most of ‘Restless Fight’ is actually great. Far better than it had any real right to be.

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ALL I KNOW – Stiletto Nightmare EP

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Back in 2008, Belgian rockers All I Know released their debut album ‘Vanity Kills’ via the less than imaginatively titled Melodic Rock Records. The record celebrated 80s sounds with aplomb. On tracks like ‘Turn Back Time’ and ‘I Wanna Rock You’, the band contrasted huge AOR harmonies with chunky guitars, but it was when leaning towards an even more commercial (but still retro) sound the material really came into its own. ‘Rain’, in particular sounded like a pitch perfect tribute to classic White Lion coupled with a more anthemic chorus hook, and ‘All Night Long’ served up bright sounding rock, with the accent firmly on the cheese. Years on, the best bits of the record sound like they inspired fellow Euro rockers like Cruzh and Stardust.

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FIND ME – Nightbound

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Eleven years after the release of their well received ‘Wings of Love’ album, the bulk of Find Me’s ‘Nightbound’ sees the much loved AOR band often sticking to a tried and tested brand of melodic rock. A couple of tracks deviate from the formula to explore different avenues of classic rock, but it’s fair to say that this fifth album plays very much to the fan. Drawing influence from bands like Survivor – whose Jim Peterik scores co-writing credits – and more modern melodic rock bands like Lionheart, the material has no real care for fashion, but what it does, it does brilliantly. So much of the strength in the band’s sound is due to vocalist Robbie LaBlanc (sometime of Blanc Faces) who possesses one of the best melodic rock voices of his generation. When you have someone like Robbie on board, capable of summoning the power of Joe Lynn Turner circa 1985 and the huge melodic sounds of a peak Dave Bickler or Steve Overland, there’s little point in trying to branch out or add new twists to a classic rock backdrop – his huge voice handles the 80s influenced sounds so perfectly.

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