Want to hear the best
AOR song you'll hear all year? Right next to one of the best melodic metal tracks you'll hear all year?
Want to hear songs written by Nino (Thunderstone) Laurenne (he also produced), Timo (Stratovarius) Tolkki, Tony (Sonata Arctica) Kakko and Marco (Nightwish/Tarot) Hietala, all on the same album?
The metal song:
'Our Beast'. The
AOR song:
'Hear My Call'.
With me yet?
Yes, it's '
Fuel For The Fire', the debut album from Finland's "Idols" winner, Ari Koivunen, a victory that followed hard on the heels of his third place in the world heavy metal karaoke championship.
Producer Laurenne walks that thin line between hard rock and melodic metal. His production takes the best from both worlds, framing Koivunen's voice in thunderous guitars, sharp riffs and beefy bgvs, creating an heroic, epic atmosphere on the metal material -
'Stormwind', '
I Fly' - and a sleeker sense of urgency on the rockier stuff,
'Hetki Lyo',
'Heartstealer'.
Koivunen's high toned vocals, which you could arguably describe as androgynous, is a million miles away from the archetypal metal voice, but handles the material with ease, if occasionally sounding a little anonymous.
Heresy perhaps, but apart from '
Our Beast' and
'Hear My Call' Koivunen sounds best on the big ballad '
Angels Are Calling', where he comes over like a rockier version of Per (Roxette) Gessle, and on the two song bonus disc. This contains the eminently catchy pop/rock cut that he sang to win the "Idols" contest, '
On The Top Of The World', plus a rousing, heartfelt cover of Billy Joel's
'Piano Man'.
On the downside, among the 12 tracks are clearly a few castoffs that got pulled from the pile to make up the numbers. If this album had been trimmed to around 10 tracks it would have been much more of a contender than it already is.
Written by
Brian Monday, July 2, 2007
Show all reviews by BrianRatingsBrian: 6.5/10Members: No members have rated this album yet.
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