Tuesday, February 9, 2016

FIND ME: ”Dark Angel”

Rating: RRRRR
Label: Frontiers 2016
Review by Kimmo Toivonen

The second effort from Robbie LaBlanc and Daniel Flores is a fine traditional AOR album. The song structures follow the golden rules of melodic rock and the lyrics don’t stray away from the usual subjects, yet the songs sound quite fresh. It might be Flores’ superb production, the layers and layers of keyboards or Robbie LaBlanc’s passionate vocals… actually it’s the combination of all those things and great songs that elevate this album to the A-list of last years releases.

The highlights of the album for me include ”Nowhere To Hide”, ”Another Day”, ”Dark Angel” and ”Midnight Memories” (No it’s not a cover!). Plenty of hooks, colorful arrangements and Mr. LaBlanc singing like an AOR god - what more can one ask? I thought I could ask for something more as I wasn’t going to hand out the full 5R rating at first, but really, why not? When a great cover of a classic eighties movie song ”I’m Free” is one of the ”weakest” tracks, I think there’s not a lot to complain.

That’s it, folks. Or should I say ”This is IT, folks”?

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