One year goes by in a flash. Unfortunately four days passes by even faster – especially when you’re in the company of a whole bunch of old (and new) friends, beautiful weather, cold beverages and, of course, great music. 2022 was the first year live music could be enjoyed after a two year pandemic and the euphoria that could be witnessed at Sweden Rock Festival that year was something you had to experience to understand.
Category General
Halestorm – Back From the Dead
It’s hard not to love Halestorm. The band’s pure love and passion for Hard Rock and Metal is all over the place and in frontwoman Lzzy Hale the band has a real source of power. She’s attitude deluxe, energetic, in your face and holds an amazing voice that sounds edgy, evil, aggressive and hard when needed but also silky and smooth when needed. They also write killer songs. That said, with the band’s last album I have the feeling of a band treading water on repeat. That doesn’t mean that the albums aren’t good because they are. Damn good even. The problem is that style-wise it kinda feels like the have painted themselves into a corner which in turn makes the songs come out a bit too alike. It’s really not an issue per se but I still can’t shake the feeling of the band’s need to reinvent and develop themselves a bit more to not stagnate.
Jeff Scott Soto – Complicated
Here’s a guy that doesn’t need any introduction at all. But what one can state is that the former Yngwie Malmsteen/Talisman/Journey vocalist seems to be pretty much everywhere these days. If he’s not releasing solo-material or with his own band SOTO we get music by Sons Of Apolllo or W.E.T. When he’s not touring with Trans-Siberian Orchestra, that is. The quality however has been a bit up and down when it comes to his solo albums of late and the SOTO albums. Sons Of Apollo and W.E.T are both superb, though. His latest solo-album Wide Awake (In My Dreamland) of new material was a lukewarm affair that at many times came across as an Alessandro Del Vecchio, who wrote most of the music and produced it, album as much as a JSS one.
Nordic Union – Animalistic
After two successful albums – Nordic Union (2016) and Second Coming (2018) – it was said that Nordic Union, the project between guitarist and main song writer Erik Mårtensson (Eclipse, W.E.T, Ammunition) and singer Ronnie Atkins (Pretty Maids) was over and done due to the pair’s hectic schedule. Sad news for me as the two albums were superb and the perfect mixture of Eclipse and Pretty Maids, if you will. Fast forward a few years and the project is on again despite Eclipse now being more popular than ever and even though Pretty Maids is on a hiatus, it’s unclear for how long, Atkins has a successful solo career going and also touring with Avantasia.
Evergrey – A Heartless Portrait (the Orphean Testament)
After 24 years Swedish dark-doom-metal band Evergrey must be seen as veterans. When it comes to bands that has been going on for that long, they usually have an audience that has been there from the start and therefore holds their old stuff the dearest leaving the new stuff on the roadside. With Evergrey it seems to be the other way around – they just keep on getting bigger with every new release selling more than the one before. I love that. And I can only agree. The band keeps on releasing high-quality albums again and again with (almost) every new album being a bit better than the one before. From Hymns For The Broken (2014) onward, I think Evergrey has put their strongest material of their career with The Storm Within (2016) as my favorite.
Autumn’s Child – Angel’s Gate
With Swedish AOR:sters Last Autumn’s Dream on hiatus, singer Mikael Erlandsson took matters in his own hands after releasing a great solo album, Capricorn Six (2019), and decided it was time to start a new band, a Last Autumn’s Dream spin-off if you will, hence the name Autumn’s Child. He brought with him talented song writer and keyboard player Jona Tee of H.E.A.T, Mustasch drummer Robban Bäck, guitarists Claes Andreasson and Pontus Åkesson (Moon Safari) with both Joel Starander and Peter Samuelsson chipping in on bass and the 2020 self-titled debut they had made was a brilliant blending of AOR and Melodic Rock. Now with album # 2, Jona Tee is only involved in two songs leaving the rest of the keyboard work to Erlandsson, a new bass player in Johan Strömberg and Åkesson as the sole guitarist with Andreasson taking the role as a producer and giving some piano to one track.
Simulacrum – Genesis
When Finland and Hard Rock is being discussed, most people think of Nightwish or more melancholic, gloomy Metal acts and as far as I know, I haven’t heard of a Progressive Metal band from there. If you don’t count Leverage as Progressive Metal, that is. I don’t. Finland’s Simulacrum is a Progressive Metal band. The roots of the band goes back to 1999 when keyboarder Christian Pulkkinen started to write songs, songs that would end up on the band’s debut album The Master And The Simulacrum which came out in 2012. Three years later the band’s second effort, Sky Divided was released. There’s been a good six years since the band released anything new but there are reasons for that happening.
Labÿrinth – Welcome to the Absurd Circus
So here’s the deal – if I hadn’t reviewed music and gotten myself promos I wouldn’t have given Labÿrinth the time of day. Why? Well, I have never been into Power Metal and I certainly wasn’t going to go out of my way to find any new bands within that genre. Also, the few Italian acts I have been giving an ear haven’t impressed me the least. Ergo: I wasn’t interested even though I had heard of the band. That’s why it was a huge surprise for me that I found their last album – Architecture Of A God (2017) – a rather good one. Firstly, it wasn’t at all all that much of a Power Metal record – melodic Metal is a far better description – and secondly, the songs were really good. But what I found most satisfying was that I didn’t have to deal with another one of those high-pitched loudmouths with a forced vibrato of a singer. Nope, Roberto Tiranti showed voice control and he only brought what the song needed without overdoing anything.
Hell In The Club – Hell of Fame
When I, back in 2017, got the promo-link for Hell In The Club’s third record See You On The Dark Side, I wondered if this lot might be some kind of metal-joke. I mean, who on Earth calls their band Hell In The Club? The album gave assumptions that they might be some kind of Lordi meets Murderdolls kind of band. Well, it turned out it was a side-projects by some members of Secret Sphere and Elvenking – and the record had those members leaving “power” in Power Metal behind and instead going into a hybrid of Heavy Metal, Hard Rock, AOR, Sleaze, Glam, Pop and even Punk at times. Looking back at my review for that record, I gave it a good 8/10 but truth be told, I haven’t really picked it up much during the three years since it was released. Just like the last album, this one is produced by Simone Mularoni (DGM, Sweet Oblivion feat. Geoff Tate, Lovekillers feat. Tony Harnell). Even though I hadn’t really thought of the band much, I did look forward to make aquaintance with the Italian four-piece once again.
Perfect Plan – Time for a Miracle
I have ranted about how modern AOR music has become safe and predictable, how all those bands – especially Swedish and Scandinavian bands – sounds the same. Song structure, arrangements and production. That’s why Swedish melodic rockers Perfect Plan’s debut album All Rise (2018) was such a wonderful surprise. Here was a band that, without being revolutionary, brought us a damn strong record in the AOR/Melodic Rock genre that sported an identity of its own with songs that weren’t cheesy or syrupy, songs with an edge, some grit and not even remotely as polished as many of the contemporary AOR acts that are out there. Perfect Plan added a good dose of crunchy Hard Rock into their music, something I have been missing a lot lately, while still keeping some of the polished sounds and very strong and catchy hooks.
CD & Festival reviews 