Rock Blog #50: Treat, Stargazery, Midnite City

I could be accused of not using the whole scale of R’s when it comes to these reviews of mine, and that would be correct. Do you want to know why? It’s because there’s so much music released these days, and while I do check out a lot of albums, I really don’t want to spend too much time on listening to music that doesn’t appeal to me for one reason or another. So basically most of the stuff I review is something that I like or otherwise important releases in the genres RockUnited.Com covers. Back in the days when labels and artists sent us physical copies we tried to review everything, but nowadays that would be impossible. Even without Spotify, there’s so much stuff being sent to us for streaming or download, that I could spend every moment I’m awake listening to something, and still not be able to listen to it all. Now, having gotten that off my chest, here’s a few albums I’ve been listening to lately, and none of them suck!

TREAT has been one of my favorite bands since the mid-eighties. As many of the 80’s hard rock bands, they  broke up during the nineties, but made a glorious comeback in 2010 with ”Coup De Grace” and have released four studio albums since then, with brand new one ”The Wild Card” (RRRRr) being the latest of those.

”The Wild Card” is a fine example of modern-day AOR which bridges the sounds of 2025 with Treat’s 80’s style quite nicely. This doesn’t sound like retro-rock, even though they sing about ”1985” and so on. The songs are polished, fine-tuned and meticulously produced, with emphasis on big hooks and perfectly crafted background vocals. Obviously Robert Ernlund’s lead vocals have been touched upon and sometimes it’s not that subtle, but then again, it’s 2025…

Anders Wickström is one of my favourite songwriters, and I think he doesn’t get enough credit for that. As far as I’m concerned, he is a Hit Machine, coming up with superb melodies and choruses at an alarming rate! All 13 songs on ”The Wild Card” have those, and while I initially thought I had found my favourites quite easily, the less immediate ones have started to chase those, when it comes to the top positions. Anyway, at the moment my favourite track is the mid-tempo ”Heaven’s Waiting”, with ”1985”, ”Back To The Future” and ”One Minute To Breathe” very close. In the next batch there’s ”Rodeo”, ”Endeavour”, ”In The Blink Of An Eye”, ”Hand On Heart”… but if you ask me again in a couple of weeks, everything might have changed. 

STARGAZERY aren’t messing around with modern influences. ”Carnival Puppeteers” (RRRr) sounds like it could have been released in 1987, which really isn’t a bad thing. They draw their influences mostly from the melodic heavy metal of 80’s and 70’s: Rainbow, Dio, Malmsteen and the likes. 

Jari Tiura’s heroic vocals are quite unique, I can’t really think of anyone else who sounds like him. Maybe a mixture of Kal Swan (Lion, Bad Moon Rising) and Ronnie James Dio could be close… or maybe not. There’s a Dio cover ”Rainbow In The Dark” on the album and Tiura does a decent job on it. The Spotify version of the album contains also another cover, Def Leppard’s ”Too Late For Love”, which isn’t quite as convincing, vocally or otherwise. Maybe the original is so strongly etched to my brain that nothing else will do.

As for the band’s own songs, my favourites are the title track, ”Strangers Before Blood” and ”Can You Deny”.  All three have some majestic keyboards and good hooks. Towards the end of the album, my interest seems to wane and the last few songs don’t do much for me. 

If you like traditional melodic metal like the bands mentioned above or someone like Axel Rudi Pell, do yourself a favor and give ”Carnival Puppeteers” a spin, not to mention the band’s older output. 

MIDNITE CITY have been around since 2017 and they’ve been quite productive with 5 full-length albums and an EP. ”Bite Te Bullet” (RRRRr) is the album number 5, released last month (November 2025). If you have liked the previous ones, you can make a blind purchase with this one, as the band is staying on their chosen path. As before, their songs range from Party Hard Rock to more melodic AOR, with influences from Danger Danger, Def Leppard, Alice Cooper and the other masters of the genres. 

So what do we have here? The Aerosmith-meets-80sAlice Cooper swagger of ”Live Like Ya Mean It” kicks down the door to the party house with a heavy boot. The AOR-friendly ”Worth Fighting For” and ”It’s Going To Be Alright” take us away to the other room, where the mood is more introspective and emotional. The album’s stand out track ”Heaven In This Hell” has a strong Alice Cooper-vibe again, ”Spark In The Dark”-guitars and a chorus that Desmond Child would be proud of, and we’re back in the party room… the AOR room calls us with ”Running Back To Your Heart”, but ”Lethal Dose Of Love” says it’s still time to rock out, with its’ clever guitar work and shout-along chorus. 

With the melancholic instrumental ”Archer’s Song”, the band lead us to the rooftop terrace, where the view is  beautiful and we can settle to the AOR mood with the balladic ”Seeing Is Believing”, Bon Jovi’sh ”No One Wins”, the catchy ”Hang On Til Tomorrow” and ”When The Summer Ends”. The last song might make you want to shed a few Blue Tears, it’s that good. As is the whole album, I think this might be the best Midnite City album so far.  

Rock Blog #49: R.I.P. Marcie Free

Last week we heard the sad news of Marcie Free’s passing. I've been listening to a lot of her music lately, so I thought a tribute of sorts would be a nice thing.

Born Mark Edward Free in April 12, 1954, Marcie went through a sex change operation in late 1993, and retired from the music industry. In 2009 she returned to the scene with the reformed Unruly Child band, who went on to release 5 albums, the latest one being ”Our Glass House” in 2020. 

In this blog entry I take a look at the classic eighties and early nineties albums of her career. The later Unruly Child albums are well worth exploring too, but I’ll stick to the vintage material for now.

KING KOBRA’s ”Ready To Strike” (1985) was the first major release featuring Mark Free on vocals. The band was formed by drummer Carmine Appice, and they had a pretty distinct image - 4 peroxide blonde guys and the dark-haired ”godfather” on drums. The band had minor success with the single and video ”Hunger”, which was actually written by the band Kick Axe, and later covered by them under the name of Spectre General on the ”Transformers” movie soundtrack. There’s also another Kick Axe-penned track on the album, ”Piece Of The Rock”. 

I rate ”Ready To Strike” as a near-perfect example of mid-eighties melodic US metal, with excellent, moody and melodic songs, great vocals from Free and superb twin guitar attack by David Michael- Philips and Mick Sweda. Most of the songs have an almost cinematic vibe, they should have been used on some movie soundtracks. My favourite songs include ”Tough Guys”, ”Second Thoughts” and ”Hunger”… the album is solid from the first track to the last. 

For some reason, ”Ready To Strike” failed to make it to the charts, and the band panicked. They made a rather drastic change of style, and the result of that was ”Thrill Of A Lifetime” in 1986. I remember being shocked when I heard it for the first time back then. This wasn’t metal at all - what had happened to King Kobra?

Now, after many decades I am not that shocked anymore, and I can mostly enjoy this album for what it is.  The biggest song of the album is ”Iron Eagle (Never Say Die)”, which was the album’s only single and video I believe. It was a minor hit, thanks to being featured in the movie ”Iron Eagle”. As a first taste of the new sound of King Kobra, it probably alienated a lot of their fans with its’ heavy use of keyboards and bouncy pop chorus.  But there was more to come once the fans got their hands on the album…

The laid back, Journey-esque ”Second Time Around” is a good song, but million miles from the exciting, hard hitting sound of the first album. The Russ Ballard-cover ”Dream On” is a bit closer to the original sound in its’ moodiness, but ”Feel The Heat” and ”Thrill of A Lifetime” take us back to the Journey / Night Ranger style. ”Only The Strong Will Survive” wouldn’t sound out of place on Journey’s ”Raised On Radio”, except it’s not as good as most of that album. 

Credit where credit is due, King Kobra were one the first rock bands to cross over to the rap genre with ”Home Street Home”. Still, I can’t really take that song seriously, it sounds like The Fresh Prince of Bel Air fronting a rock band…

After the first seven tracks something weird happens: the old King Kobra returns! Guitars are cranked up with the superb ”Overnight Sensation”. This song would have been right at home on ”Ready To Strike”!  ”Raise Your Hands To Rock” and ”Party Animal” are also decent hard rock tracks. 

Despite the band’s attempt to break into radio the album didn’t really go anywhere, and Free left the band. After being out of the limelight for a couple of years, Free returned with SIGNAL, a band based around the songwriting talent of Mark Baker and Erik Scott. The band was a short-lived one, and released only one album ”Loud & Clear” in 1989. It was produced by Kevin Elson, and while it didn’t set the charts alive, it’s considered a classic AOR album by the fans of the genre. I am not about to argue with that, it’s one of my favourite albums of all time! 

With a great production and impressive songs, the album should’ve been a million seller, but as it often happened back then, there were personnel changes in the record company and whatnot, so they never got the push they would have deserved. Anyway, the album is full of songs I rate very highly - just pick any one of them! Well, I’m not that fond of ”My Mistake” which does feature Eric Martin, but the rest of them are all massive AOR gems. 

The next chapter in the story is called UNRULY CHILD. Released in 1992, the self-titled album is a semi-classic, hard-edged AOR record. The nucleus of the band consisted of Bruce Gowdy (guitar), Guy Allison (keyboards) and Free on vocals. Produced by Beau Hill, it’s a big sounding album with Free adopting a bit rougher vocal approach than on the previous two albums.

Again, despite there being several tracks oozing with commercial potential (”When Love Is Gone”, ”Who Cries Now”, ”Is It Over”…), the album wasn’t a big seller. The times had changed and polished, melodic heavy rock sound wasn’t ”in” anymore. Once again, another cult genre classic was born but that’s about it. The label dropped the band and they re-named themselves as Twelve Pound Sledge and went for a heavier style, but nothing much came out of that. 

During his time off the spotlight, Free had done a lot of studio work for several songwriters, singing on their demos. In 1993, an album of songs written by Judithe and Robin Randall was released as a Mark Free solo album ”Long Way From Love”. It was a brilliant selection of melodic AOR songs. The production wasn’t as great as on Free’s previous albums, the songs were basically polished demos, but excellent songs anyway. Some of them had been previously recorded by major artists such as FM (”Someday You’ll Come Running”) and Agnetha Faltskog (”The Last Time”).  In October 1993 Free flew to United Kingdom and made a rare live appearance as a solo artist, performing songs from the album and a few others at GODS OF AOR festival. He was backed by Swedish band Snakes In Paradise. The set was recorded and released in 1998 on a ”deluxe edition” of ”Long Way From Love” album. 

The first release under the name of Marcie Free was called ”Tormented” in 1995, and it included material written for the second Unruly Child (or Twelve Pound Sledge) album. Rather heavy stuff and not among my favourite MF material. 

Apart from the official releases, there are dozens of demos floating around with Mark/Marcie on vocals. Check out YouTube and you’ll have hours worth of material to enjoy with this golden voice!

BATTLE BEAST: ”Steelbound”

 

2025 Nuclear Blast

Rating: RRRR

Review by Kimmo Toivonen

”Steelbound” is the seventh Battle Beast album, which means that this incarnation of the band has released more albums than the original band led by Anton Kabanen. Some fans are still longing for the traditional power metal sound of the old days, but the band has gone from strength to strength with their more versatile style. ”Steelbound” continues on the same path, incorporating influences from various eras and genres.

The four songs released before the actual album have given the public a good taste of things to come. ”Last Goodbye” is a traditional BB banger with echoes of ”Eden” and ”Beyond The Burning Skies”, while ”Here We Are” is an airy, melodic number. The title track reminded me initially of Abba and The Night Flight Orchestra, but now I have to add ”I’m So Excited” by the Pointer Sisters to the mix! Anyway, it’s one of my favourites and catchy as hell, even though I’m still not sure about the very metallic bridge. The last one of the singles is ”Angel Of Midnight”, an awesome hard rock track and another personal favourite. The verses owe a little to those of H.E.A.T.’s ”In And Out Of Trouble”.

So far, none of the ”new” songs have risen to challenge the singles. There’s five of them, as ”The Long Road” is just a two-minute instrumental intro to ”Blood Of Heroes”. The album opens with ”The Burning Within”, representing the metallic side of the band, but still melodic enough. After a couple of the singles already discussed, we get ”Twilight Cabaret”, which sounds like a relative of ”Master Of Illusion”, although the arrangement features some very unusual elements - do I hear some salsa beats or was that rumba?

Next ”newbie” is the aforementioned ”Blood Of Heroes”, a semi-symphonic track which has Sabaton written all over it, musically and lyrically. ”Riders Of The Storm” shows a light-hearted ”Happy Metal” side of Battle Beast and won’t probably be a favourite of the True Metal crowd... It’s a fun song but I can’t really take it seriously. Then again, why should I? ”Watch The Sky Fall” closes the album, and I was kind of expecting a ballad, but it’s not. A decent, somewhat understated mid tempo song anyway. 

There’s been a change in the songwriting duties, as keyboard player/producer Janne Björkroth isn’t the main writer anymore, with only two songs credited to him and his songwriting partner Elise Widemark. Bassist Eero Sipilä has written four of the tracks, guitarist Joona Björkroth two and one is their collaboration. Vocalist Noora Louhimo shines as usual, she is absolutely one of the most impressive vocalists of today.

Rock Blog #48: The Rasmus, The Switch, Stan Bush

THE RASMUS is back! With their new album ”Weirdo” (RRRR) the band has found some of their magic again. For my money, ever since the release of ”Black Roses” (2008) the band has been  more or less lost, with only a few memorable songs on each of their albums. I had high hopes for their previous album ”Rise”, which featured the rather good Eurovision Song Contest entry ”Jezebel”, but the album wasn’t that great. Now, with Desmond Child taking a bigger role (9 out of 10 songs feature him as a co-writer) and the band re-establishing themselves as a rock band, things are going to the right direction. 

The first half of the album contains the singles released before the album, ”Rest In Pieces”, ”Creatures Of Chaos” and ”Break These Chains”, all representing the hard-edged, darker side of the band. The same goes for ”Deadringer”, which is actually the catchiest of these four and a potential single too. The chorus is awfully familiar sounding though, but I haven’t been able to find which song it reminds me of. The latest single ”Weirdo” is probably my favourite track of the album, a semi-ballad with a massive chorus and The Funeral Portrait as a featured artist. 

The second half of the album contains a few surprises. ”Banksy” and ”Love Is A Bitch” remind me of the ”Into” album with their playfulness. The whistling part on ”Love Is A Bitch” is again very familiar and again I can’t figure out why! ”You Want It All” is another balladic track and one of my favourites, with echoes of some old Desmond Child ballads in the chorus. ”Bad Things” is a good rocker with cool verses and a nice build-up to the chorus, but the chorus itself lacks something, it’s a bit too simple. Anyway, this song is a distant relative of Ratt’s ”Lovin’ You’s A Dirty Job”. The closing track is ”I’m Coming For You”, a softer track more in style of the band’s recent output, but much more interesting with its’ haunting melodies and melancholic atmosphere.

British songwriter brothers James and Tom Martin have already left their mark on the modern melodic rock scene with Vega, Nitrate and their other numerous songwriting contributions. THE SWITCH is their first project where they are in total control, so these songs represent the ”Sound Of The Martin Bros” 100 per cent. The foundation is the 80’s melodic rock and synth pop: layers of keyboards, big hooks and great, emotional vocals by Bobby John. While this might suggest that the band’s sound is purely retro, it isn’t. This the eighties sound updated, sounding modern and retro at the same time. Think Def Leppard meets The Midnight, 80’s AOR meets Synthwave. The album is called ”No Way Out” (RRRR) and my favourite songs are ”Hangin On To Seventeen”, ”Young Gun” and ”Anytime”. 

STAN BUSH is one of my favourite artists and he has been a reliable one, always coming up with solid albums one after another. ”Born For Battle” (RRRr) is his latest one, and it’s a solid one for sure, but is it a bit too safe and predictable? Apparently all of these songs are new, but looking at the song titles (”No Surrender”, ”Stand Or Fall”, ”Heart Of A Lion” etc) I thought some of them had to be remakes! After having heard them, I’m still not sure… there are so many familiar traces of old Stan Bush songs here, not to mention other 80’s soundtrack rock songs. Still, I can’t really complain because I pretty much like all of these songs. They are mostly inspirational songs about winning, not giving up and that sort of things, with a couple of love songs thrown in. Stan himself still sings great, the years haven’t really affected his voice too much. Top picks: ”The Sound Of Victory” and ”Prisoner Of The Heart”. 

CROWNE: "Wonderland"

Frontiers 2025
Rating: RRRRr
Review by Kimmo Toivonen

The all-star band Crowne have established themselves as something more than just a one-off project put together by the record label. ”Wonderland” is their third album, which is quite an accomplishment, considering that the members are pretty busy with their other projects too. Especially main writer and keyboard player Jona Tee (H.E.A.T. &. producing) and vocalist Alexander Strandell (Art Nation, Nitrate, Lionville) have pretty hectic schedules I assume. The other guys (John Leven of Europe, Love Magnusson of Dynazty and Kicken Lundqvist) aren’t exactly resting on their laurels either.

The album gets a flying start with the irresistible title track and ”Waiting For You”, two songs that went straight to my ”Highlights of 2025” playlist. These could be described as ”Power AOR”, somewhere between Power Metal and AOR. An extra mention must go to Strandell and his soaring vocals, his performance on these tracks and the whole album is something quite exceptional! 

 ”Eye Of The Oracle” is a bit moodier, but an excellent track too, as is ”Heaven Tonight”, which continues the Power AOR theme, like Battle Beast mixed with H.E.A.T. After hearing these four first tracks, I was thinking that we might have an album worth of the full set of R’s here!

It seems that the band used their biggest bombs right away, as the rest of the album can’t really match the brilliance of the first four tracks. Don’t get me wrong, none of the remaining tracks are bad, they could have been a foundation of killer album, but now we’ll have to settle for a very good one. But let’s take a closer look at them.

”Warlords Of The North” has been co-written by Saxon vocalist Biff Byford, and it’s heavy track, a slow-tempo stomper with a bit Sabbathesque vibe. ”Timing Is Right” gives me a strange sense of deja vu, as its’ chorus sounds somewhat like a faster version of ”Heaven Tonight”.

”Goodbye” is a decent ballad that reminds of Europe. ”Love Thy Enemy” was initially one of the weaker tracks but I’ve grown to like it. It’s another moody track and features some nice piano parts by Jona Tee.  ”Legacy” might be the closest thing to filler here, an okay track but it doesn’t really leave a lasting trace.   ”Hearts Collide” is the only track solely written by Alexander Strandell, and it’s the highlight of the album’s second half. The closing number ”The Fall” has its’s moments, a quite clever chorus but I haven’t really warmed up to it.

The band’s sound is a rather fascinating combination of the elements brought in by the members. It’s not exactly like H.E.A.T. or Art Nation or something in between. There’s a metallic overtone in it, yet some of the hooks could work as pop songs, if produced differently. I threw in the ”Power AOR” term earlier, which I think is somehow accurate. Go ahead and listen yourself. 

 

Rock Blog #47: Amalgama, Strategy, Roulette, Art Nation, Ginevra

The summer festivals kept me pretty busy for the last couple of months - attending three festivals, writing about them, editing thousands of photos and some videos. Ive tried to keep up with the latest releases but it’s been a ”mission: impossible”, since listening to only new albums all the time isn’t something I want to do. Anyway, here’s a bunch of new and (newish) albums I’ve checked out.

AMALGAMA’s ”Ice Wind Tales” (RRr) is a rather traditional heavy metal album in the vein of 80’s Scorpions and Judas Priest. The band is an international one, with members from several European countries. This is their seventh studio album if I’m not mistaken. The band’s songs aren’t that bad, but not particularly memorable either. There are couple of things that make the band stand out from others though: first, they have a keyboard player who wears a clown mask, a character featured on many of their album covers. Second thing is vocalist Vlad ”Grad” Ivoilov, who sounds very much like Klaus Meine, and even looks a bit like him! 

STRATEGY’s ”Love Tactics” (RRr) starts with some promise, fairly catchy tracks with a sound and artwork straight from West-Germany, 1987. And having seen the video for the title track, apart from vocalist/bassist Weazzel’s way too contemporary beard, they embrace the eighties’ look too. Big hair, frilly shirts, massive stacks of keyboards and Simmons electronic drums in the set! Produtionwise they seem to be faithful to the eighties too, as the vocals do not seem to be pitch-corrected. Mr. Weazzel’s vocals are at times painful to listen to. But anyway, if Kingdom’s ”Lost In The City” is one of your favourite albums, check ”Love Tactics”.

Swedish ROULETTE are back with ”Go!”(RRR), which is their third album. They started way back in the 80’s, but released their first album in 2008, a compilation of their old singles and other material. Encouraged by its’ success, they wrote new music and released the album ”Now!” In 2019 to much critical acclaim.

With a vocalist Thomas Lundgren sounding a lot like Tommy Nilsson, the band has been compared to Easy Action (”That Makes One” era), but I’d say they’re a bit heavier. The album is full of decent AOR songs, but for me, there aren’t any standouts I’m afraid. Recommended for fans of Journey, Alien and FM, give this a listen.

The first ART NATION album owed a lot to H.E.A.T. , but since then the band has moved from that style to something more modern. ”Chapter V- The Ascendance” (RRRR) ends the band’s string of albums with ”-ion” in the title, and sees them taking cues from bands such as Amaranthe, Dynazty and even Kamelot. There are even some techno/industrial vibes on the album, check out ”Unstoppable” for example. Art Nation is vocalist Alexander Strandell’s ”main band”, so it’s only a good thing that it sounds different to the other projects his involved in (Crowne, Nitrate, Lionville).  My favourite songs are ”Set Me Free”, ”Thunderball” and   the aforementioned ”Unstoppable”. 

The Swedish ”supergroup” GINEVRA is a project put together by Frontiers Records, featuring Kristian Fyhr (Seventh Crystal vocalist and a very productive songwriter), Magnus Karlsson (Primal Fear and guitarist/producer/songwriter of many other projects), Jimmy Jay of H.E.A.T. on bass and ex-Eclipse drummer Magnus Ulfstedt.  ”Beyond Tomorrow” (RRRr) is their second effort, with Fyhr co-writing all of the songs with his writing partners  and Karlsson getting a couple of credits too. 

Ginevra’s sound is slightly heavier than the standard Frontiers projects and apparently this album takes a few spins to start working. The opening track ”Moonlight” was an instant ”hit” for me, but now quite a few of these songs have made their presence known - ”True North”, ”Wild Ones” and ”Higher” to name a few. If you like Eclipse, Art Nation, Seventh Crystal and Magnus Karlsson’s projects, this band is worthy of your attention.

Rock Blog #46: Timson AOR, Destiny Calls, Heaven's Reign, Brother Firetribe

 Okay, let’s check out some recent or not-so-recent releases. 

TIMSON AOR is a British project that plays post-apocalyptic progressive glamcore… no, as you might guess, they’re an AOR band! I’m not sure why it has to be underlined, maybe there’s another Timson and they want to avoid confusion. The band consists of Mark Timson (guitar, keys, bass) and Lukky S. (vocals, guitar, bass, keys) and ”The Next Level” (RRR) is their second album. It’s smooth melodic rock in the vein of early FM and Shy, but not on the same level. I keep thinking that if this had been released in 1988, it might not have been a hit but it would have gotten a cult album status among the AOR community. Something like Walk On Fire, Beau Geste and other obscurities. My favourite track is ”Be True To Yourself”, which is a bit more intense than the rest of the songs. Besides, stabbing staccato keys almost always win me over!

DESTINY CALLS hails from Greece, and they play edgy melodic hard rock with AOR overtones. Their sound takes me back to the eighties, and if I was told thet this is an unearthed tape from 1986 I’d be inclined to believe. As far as I know, ”Alive” (RRRr) is a brand new release though.

The album’s songs are very keyboard-heavy, yet the hard-edged guitars and gritty vocals by Aggeliki Rossolatou keep the overall vibe quite metallic. Think Frontline’s first album, early Jaded Heart and the likes, but with female vocals. For me, the album really starts after the first two songs, which aren’t among my favourites. ”Out Of Love” and ”Into The Night” are, so maybe check them out first. 

UK’s newcomers HEAVEN’S REIGN have been praised as the next big thing in hard rock genre. The debut album ”Northern Lights” (RRRr) is a solid effort, an exceptionally good sounding album indeed. The album starts with a trio of heavy rockers which don’t really have enough hooks to catch me. ”Lady Of The Night” is another heavy rocker, but with a sharper hook. 

With ”Born To Fly” the band lighten up a little, and move into the Tyketto territory. The following ”Northern Lights” and ”Listen To Your Heart”are probably the most AOR¨ish things on the album, both decent tunes indeed. ”Bad Boys” sound strangely like a mixture of Heaven’s Edge and Nickelback, if you can imagine that… and I like it! ”The Good Die Young” is what we call ”a plodder” - a mid tempo track with a dull chorus, but the closing track ”Never Again” makes up for it, a sharp melodic rocker with a cool chorus. It might just be my favourite song here.

Heaven’s Reign might not be the saviors of melodic rock yet, but I’ll be watching how they progress.

BROTHER FIRETRIBE are one of my favourite bands, I’ll happily admit that. Then again, if they started releasing sub-standard material, I wouldn’t hesitate to say so. Fortunately, their new EP ”Number One” (RRRRr) is as far from ”sub-standard” as anything can be.  The only reason I won’t give it the full 5 R’s is the fact that it’s a bit short, and the acoustic version of ”Bring On The Rain” is kind of a filler. 

The EP includes the four singles released after the band’s latest full album ”Feel The Heat”, two new tracks and the aforementioned acoustic version. ”Number One” and ”How Long Until Tomorrow” are the new songs, and they are both very good. ”Number One” takes me back to the second album ”Heart Full Of Fire”, it has that kind of intensity, while ”How Long…” has a bit of a ”Sunbound” vibe, a laid-back summertime anthem.

The previously released singles are all good, and 3 out of 4 made it to my ”Best of BFT” playlist (as did both of the new tracks). ”Thunder Rising” didn’t make it but it was a close call… 

GIANT: "Stand And Deliver"

Frontiers 2025
Rating: RRRR
Review by Kimmo Toivonen

 ”Stand And Deliver” is the latest album from GIANT. The rhythm section of David Huff and Mike Brignardello are the only remaining members from the original line-up, while Kent Hill of Perfect Plan continues as the lead vocalist and Jimmy Westerlund (One Desire) has taken over the guitar and production duties.  Westerlund and Hilli have written most of the songs, with a little help from Frontiers’ ”songwriter pool”. A few of the tunes have been sourced from elsewhere, including original guitarist/singer Dann Huff’s archives. 

I must say that the writers (and the producer) have really made sure that these songs sound like Giant. Some of the song titles are underlining the connection to the old stuff kind of heavily - there’s ”Hold The Night” (”Hold Back The Night”), ”It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over” (”I’ll Be There When It’s Over” and ”It’s Not Over” from the previous album) and Paradise Found (”Lost In Paradise”) , but I can live with that, because the songs are so good. 

The album starts with a very impressive string of great songs: ”It’s Not Right”, ”A Night To Remember”, ”Hold  The Night” and ”I Will Believe” ( a Clif Magness/Kyle Vincent composition). Big hooks, impressive production and great vocals from Kent Hill, what’s not to like? 

Next up, ”Beggars Can’t Be Choosers” sounds like a typical uptempo Giant rocker (think ”Time To Burn” or ”The Big Pitch”), not necessarily a filler as it has its’ place here, but not one of my favourites. ”It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over” is a good ballad, while ”Stand And Deliver” is a close relative to ”Lay It On The Line”, maybe its’ illegitimate offspring. 

Then we get to the Dann Huff songs. ”Time To Call It Love” is written by Huff and the late Mark Spiro, so it doesn’t come as a surprise that it’s a fine, melodic song. ”Holdin’ On For Dear Life” and ”Paradise Found” are both co-written by Van Stephenson, another master songwriter who has passed away a few years ago. The first of them is an okay rocker, while ”Paradise Found” is a fine ballad. As it happens, Van Stephenson co-write the above mentioned ”Lost In Paradise”, so maybe this is an official sequel? 

The last song is ”Pleasure Dome”, and I assume that a ”Thunder And Lightning” type of a mid-tempo rocker has been the target. Sure enough, Del Vecchio, Westerlund and Hilli wrote something similar, but this is more like ”dark clouds and occasional showers”.

As long as this project has the blessing of Dann Huff, I won’t join the choir that sings ”this shouldn’t be called Giant!” Of course I’d be thrilled if Dann decided to participate, but as things are, this Giant will have to do, and I enjoy these songs almost as much as the ”originals”.