During the last 2 years, Swedish AOR band, Eye have morphed into Swedish AOR band, Osukaru, named for the band's mainman, Oz Osukaru, writer, guitarist and producer.
The Eye EP,
'2 Hearts' was sensational. We said that they had "taken a battered, dog eared but well defined snapshot of eighties' AOR and restored it to its former glory, using 21st century technology and lots of enthusiasm".
In particular, we said that the "immense" title track had "all the pace, panache and urgency of great AOR".
Arguably, with
'Never Too Late', Osukaru the band seek to recreate the sublime AOR moments grasped by their predecessors.
But the material on that stunningly ambitious debut is rarely matched here.
There's clearly a structured, targeted attempt to create a more sophisticated version of the Eye stuff with
'Drive by Your Love' and the harder edged
'City Lights', but lacking the anchor of a well defined direction, both meander somewhat adrift in generic eighties' AOR hell.
That said, the title track mounts an auspicious assault on your emotions, looking to scale the same melodic rock heights as did '
2 Hearts' without actually getting there.
Good try though.
And
'Whatever It Takes', written by new keyboard player, Kristoffer Von Wachenfeldt, is a brightly burning AOR song of unerring simplicity, uncomplicated sentiment and grown up tone, and is maybe the surprise winner here.
What we need is a full album of material. Coming soon I hear.
Style: AOR/Melodic Rock
Rating: 6/10Posted by
Brian - Thursday, May 12, 2011
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