Rating: 7/10
Label: Avenue Of Allies 2012
Review by Kimmo Toivonen
As I recall, the first Frozen Rain album was a rather lightweight album, too sugary for its' own good. Our reviewer Urban gave it a bit of a slapping, I merely forgot it after listening to it briefly. I'm glad to report that the band has taken several steps towards the AOR royalty they want to belong to. Gone are the various vocalists, replaced by Carsten "Lizard" Schulz, a much-in-demand German singer. Gone is the limp-wristed, overtly smooth wimp rock style too. I don't know what gave the band a much-needed shot in the arm, but I quite like the results.
While Kurt Vereecke and his troops may not have written any all-time AOR classics yet, there are several rather good songs on the album. And would you believe it, one of the best ones is an instrumental?! I'm not a big fan of instrumentals, but "Voodoo Party" is a special track, an excellent uptempo AOR song with tasty keys and guitarwork. Other noteworthy tracks include "The Last Dance Ain't Over", "Forever", "Not At Home" and the classy ballad "Too Late". A few of the other tracks suffer of somewhat weak choruses - good intros, the verses are fine, there's a nice build-up... and when the chorus should "close the deal", so to speak, it doesn't. Therefore only a 7, but still, "Ahead Of Time" is in a different league than its' predecessor.
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