RATING: RRRR
LABEL: Inner Wound
REVIEW BY: Alan Holloway
UK
noise makers Neonfly have been beavering away at their second album for a while
now, and to be honest expectations weren’t amazingly high, although their debut
album was a solid piece of work. Well, my own expectations have been blown
right out of the water by ‘Strangers In Paradise’, an album that sees Neonfly gain
a few rungs on the rock ladder of success.
The most fun thing about this album is the way it
continually defies attempts to slot it into a comfy pigeonhole. \Opener ‘Whispered
Dreams’ is a gloriously catchy mix of power metal and melodic rock with
sumptuous vocals and harmony. The vocal mix is something that continuously lifts
the album throughout, with singer Willy Norton possessing one of those high
register voices that has poise and power in equal measure. The thing is,
Neonfly aren’t a power metal band, even though they sometimes to a good
impression. What Neonfly are is a power metal prog AOR melodic hard rock band. You
know, obviously…
The Progness comes in all over the place, with the band able
to slip in a bit of proggy introspection into songs under 4 minutes long, which
is a nice touch. There’s only one ‘epic’, the six and a half minute ‘Chasing
The Night’, a pretty straightforward rock track with a break in the middle for
atmosphere. After all that fun, the album closes with one of the most beautiful
tracks of the year, ‘Falling Star’ – something that TNT would have done almost
as well back in the good old days. There’s also a neat instrumental track in
here (‘Aztec Gold’), where guitarist Frederick Thunder gets to show off his not
inconsiderable chops. All in all, a damned good mix of style and substance.
‘Strangers In paradise’ has come right out of left field,
and will surprise and delight a lot of people who never even had Neonfly on
their radar. A consummate rock album for the modern era, it encompasses just
about everything we like about this genre called ‘rock’. Personally, I would
have preferred a few more pacy songs like the opener, but this still stands as
a first class album by a band who are just about to make a big splash in our
small pond.
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