…and everybody goes “Who?”… Rightfully so, I guess because Rob Moratti isn’t exactly Jon Bon Jovi – thank God. Rob Moratti started out in the nineties by fronting his own bands Moratti and then later on, Final Frontier and released several albums. But if Moratti is known by anything then it’s by the fact that he, in 2008 replaced Michael Sadler as the lead vocalist for Canadian pomp rock band Saga. Now, I have never been a Saga-fan, fact is, I don’t think I have ever listened to a whole album by the band, so a solo record from a not even an original member of that band, normally wouldn’t interest me at all. That there is a solo album from Moratti now is, of course, because Sadler is now back in Saga and Moratti had to be let go. The reason I even bothered to check this album out is that I heard Rob sing the fantastic power ballad “House Of Love” on the Phenomena album Blind Faith. What a voice!
Now, this album is pure AOR and of course, released on Frontier Records. The production is slick and clean and Moratti’s voice takes up a lot of space in this sound scape. The album opens up with “Life On The Line”, a great uptempo AOR killer, “Lifetime” is just brilliant and so very catchy, “Power Of Love” is a good song but a bit too cheesy and “On And On” is a real groover, a bit harder and leans more towards melodic rock than pure AOR. When you’re dealing with AOR, there will always be ballads and this album is no exception. “Take It All Back” is a catchy half ballad, “I Promise You” is a catchy, uptempo ballad and “Now More Than Ever”, as the title might suggest, is total AOR ballad – very good. However, my favourite on this album is “Jennie”, a catchy pop / AOR song that has a lot of Toto in it – brilliant.
After only one spin, Victory turns out to be a very pleasant AOR journey. I can’t find any bad tracks on here at all, although there are a couple of fillers and some tracks that leans towards a mediocre direction and a little more attitude wouldn’t hurt. Still, great sound, great singer and Moratti did manage to get guitarist Reb Beech (Winger, Whitesnake) and Tony Franklin (The Firm, Blue Murder, Whitesnake) to play on the album.
Jon Wilmenius (7/10)
Tracklist:
1. Life On The Line
2. Everything But Good Bye
3. Life Time
4. Power Of Love
5. Hold That Light
6. On And On
7. Take It All Back
8. I Promise You
9. Standing On The Top Of The World
10. Jennie
11. Now More Than Ever
CD & Festival reviews 
The guy in the far left of the above picture is my buddy Brian Doerner who was in Saga at the time 🙂 He’s currently playing in a Supertramp tribute band called Crisis? What Crisis? Very talented drummer.
Do Beach and Franklin play on the whole album? If do that might make this thing worth buying for me. I LOVE fretless bass.
Brian Doerner? Is he related to Helix Brent?
I think they both play on the whole album. I never got the credits for this album.
Brian and Brent are twin brothers. I’ve been in the same room with both of them a few times, and had to double check which one I was talking to 🙂
Look at me, name dropping again. Where’s Neue Regel to keep my ego in check? How’s Kee doing, Jon? 🙂
These days Brent is doing video editing primarily, he left Helix again back in the fall. He actually just finished their new music video for “Champagne Communist”.
Wow. Didn’t know that Helix was still around. I met them once when they were doing promotion for Long Way To Heaven. Really cool. They were the first rock stars I ever met, really down to earth and nice guys.