First Spin Impressions

[Geoff]

mate, looks like based on your first impression, you got at least 10-15 bad discs on the last purchases, well i think it's about time to fully concentrate on download-first-buy-later thing, even if it's only $5, if you got 20 trashes like that, you can buy 10 solid discs right ?

Yeah, mate, I pretty much live by the rule of downloading first before deciding to buy, but there are limits to it. One, what is available to download, and two, if I see something really cheap I always have it in the back of my mind that if I don't like it it'll go straight onto the trade list or ebay and I won't really have lost much, if anything. Only problem is finding time to update trade list or list something on ebay...

[Geoff]

Sahara Rain - s/t ; pretty damn solid disc from Perris. Got this one a while ago, just heard it now. Though I do have a feeling I might have downloaded this before making this decision. If I did, it was the right one. There's a couple of fillers on here, but it's generally a pretty damn fine hard rock disc. Nice one.

 

Sanchez - 'Nightride' ; debut EP from the band that received a scathing review from our very own Mark on this site. When you start and EP with a filler it's a bad sign, and in this case a sign of things to come. There's wasn't anything so bad that you needed to kill someone over it, but most the songs were average or below average. Nothing real worthwhile going on here at all...

[Geoff]

John Schlitt - 'Shake' ; musically this is pretty decent. Nice enough AOR / melodic rock, not too disimilar to the better side of Petra. Where this fails for the average listener, though, is in the lyrics. They're very terribly godly and the album's definitely aimed moreso at christians than at normal people. Seriously, though, if you don't like preachy lyrics this one is one to be skipped.

[phaffas]

John Schlitt - 'Shake' ; musically this is pretty decent. Nice enough AOR / melodic rock, not too disimilar to the better side of Petra. Where this fails for the average listener, though, is in the lyrics. They're very terribly godly and the album's definitely aimed moreso at christians than at normal people. Seriously, though, if you don't like preachy lyrics this one is one to be skipped.

Normal?

 

No more cuddles for you...

[Geoff]

John Schlitt - 'Shake' ; musically this is pretty decent. Nice enough AOR / melodic rock, not too disimilar to the better side of Petra. Where this fails for the average listener, though, is in the lyrics. They're very terribly godly and the album's definitely aimed moreso at christians than at normal people. Seriously, though, if you don't like preachy lyrics this one is one to be skipped.

Normal?

 

No more cuddles for you...

No more cuddles = no more pug kisses from my furry little squash-faced friend you like so much.

[phaffas]

John Schlitt - 'Shake' ; musically this is pretty decent. Nice enough AOR / melodic rock, not too disimilar to the better side of Petra. Where this fails for the average listener, though, is in the lyrics. They're very terribly godly and the album's definitely aimed moreso at christians than at normal people. Seriously, though, if you don't like preachy lyrics this one is one to be skipped.

Normal?

 

No more cuddles for you...

No more cuddles = no more pug kisses from my furry little squash-faced friend you like so much.

how is your wife?

[heaven&hell]

Bangalore Choir - All or Nothing: Live at Firefest

I haven't been a fan of live albums the last few years but with me being a big Reece fan and this one supposedly being limited to 1000 copies I had to have it. The sound is excellent and the set list is almost perfect with 8 tunes from On Target and 3(not counting the intro) from Cadence. Dave sounds great as does the band. My only complaint is that they didn't play my fav BC song "Hold on to You".

[Geoff]

Scorpions - 'Love at first sting' ; typically Scorpions is how you could sum this up in two words. To expand, it's decent but really struggles to be anything more than that. Sure it's worthy of a place in the collection, with a few pretty cool tracks, namely the hit single 'Rock you like a hurricane.' But the reason why the Scorpions never really made an imprint on me is because there's just too many average songs on ALL their CDs, except the last two. Average at best.

 

Seventh Rize - 'Full Moon' ; what a disappointment this one turned out to be. I'm quite a fan of their debut, 'Visceral Rock' but this one is not really anything like that spritely hard rocking disc. This one just plods... it really does. One song after the other is just well, plodding along. The album never really makes you tune in until a pretty decent last song. After a glance through the liner notes you will appreciate it's pretty much a different band with a different mindset compared to the debut so maybe that explains it. It's not an awful CD, but I'd say it's suited more to the vintage rockers out there, if anyone. I have heard it often compared to Bad Company, whereas the debut was for Ratt/Crue/Icon type fans.

[Glen]

Bangalore Choir - All or Nothing: Live at Firefest

I haven't been a fan of live albums the last few years but with me being a big Reece fan and this one supposedly being limited to 1000 copies I had to have it. The sound is excellent and the set list is almost perfect with 8 tunes from On Target and 3(not counting the intro) from Cadence. Dave sounds great as does the band. My only complaint is that they didn't play my fav BC song "Hold on to You".

 

It was a great performance for sure!

[heaven&hell]

Edguy - Tinnutus Sanctus

I played this once before without paying to close attention and my first thought was that "Tinnutus Sanctus" was German for pile of shit, but after one more spin it's not as bad as I first thought. There's some solid tunes but not nothing near as good as what Tobias does with Avantasia IMO.

 

Twisted Sister - Love is for Suckers

While I had this on cassette for years this is the first time I've had it on cd and it's actually much better than I remember it. It sticks out like a sore thump when compared to the other TS albums but when one considers that it wasnt' supposed to be a TS album at all and Reb Beach plays most of the solos it actually has some good tunes. There are a few fillers IMO and this is that reissue that has four bonus tracks and there okay. Also I never had noticed before that TNT's Ronnie LeTekro had arranged all of the songs along with Dee, Beau Hill and Reb Beach.

[TIM (2)]

ROB MORATTI - Victory

 

Solo disc from the ex-Final Frontier and Saga man with the love-it-or-hate-it high-pitched vocals. I've always liked his vocals, especially as with the Final Frontier stuff they were so high in the mix and dominated the music. Here it's standard pure AOR all the way and even some decent vocals - though it's all a bit workmanlike - can't save the material, which is dross. Nothing stands out and there are barely any decent hooks on the entire disc. IMHO the "Second Wave" disc was the best thing Moratti ever sung on, and this is so far removed from that it's hard to tell it's the same guy. AVOID.

[Glen]

ROB MORATTI - Victory

 

Solo disc from the ex-Final Frontier and Saga man with the love-it-or-hate-it high-pitched vocals. I've always liked his vocals, especially as with the Final Frontier stuff they were so high in the mix and dominated the music. Here it's standard pure AOR all the way and even some decent vocals - though it's all a bit workmanlike - can't save the material, which is dross. Nothing stands out and there are barely any decent hooks on the entire disc. IMHO the "Second Wave" disc was the best thing Moratti ever sung on, and this is so far removed from that it's hard to tell it's the same guy. AVOID.

 

Ha ha the viscious quill of Tim strikes again.

 

Seriously mate your tastes are so hard to judge. This is a disc I presumed that you would love - you know high quality AOR. lol!!

 

Dont be too put off by Tim's scathing review.......for me this is an excellent AOR album - FULL of hooks, and bloody great solos care of Mr Beach.

[TIM (2)]

ROB MORATTI - Victory

 

Solo disc from the ex-Final Frontier and Saga man with the love-it-or-hate-it high-pitched vocals. I've always liked his vocals, especially as with the Final Frontier stuff they were so high in the mix and dominated the music. Here it's standard pure AOR all the way and even some decent vocals - though it's all a bit workmanlike - can't save the material, which is dross. Nothing stands out and there are barely any decent hooks on the entire disc. IMHO the "Second Wave" disc was the best thing Moratti ever sung on, and this is so far removed from that it's hard to tell it's the same guy. AVOID.

 

Ha ha the viscious quill of Tim strikes again.

 

Seriously mate your tastes are so hard to judge. This is a disc I presumed that you would love - you know high quality AOR. lol!!

 

Dont be too put off by Tim's scathing review.......for me this is an excellent AOR album - FULL of hooks, and bloody great solos care of Mr Beach.

 

Yeah the musicianship's good, but who gives a toss when the songwriting's as lifeless as this? I love Moratti's voice but he sounds like he's phoned this one in and hardly ever actually pushes his voice at all. In fact it's just so bland it's offensive, and there are too few decent choruses on here (a lot of them sound exactly the same) to bother buying stuff like this.

[phaffas]

ROB MORATTI - Victory

 

Solo disc from the ex-Final Frontier and Saga man with the love-it-or-hate-it high-pitched vocals. I've always liked his vocals, especially as with the Final Frontier stuff they were so high in the mix and dominated the music. Here it's standard pure AOR all the way and even some decent vocals - though it's all a bit workmanlike - can't save the material, which is dross. Nothing stands out and there are barely any decent hooks on the entire disc. IMHO the "Second Wave" disc was the best thing Moratti ever sung on, and this is so far removed from that it's hard to tell it's the same guy. AVOID.

 

Ha ha the viscious quill of Tim strikes again.

 

Seriously mate your tastes are so hard to judge. This is a disc I presumed that you would love - you know high quality AOR. lol!!

 

Dont be too put off by Tim's scathing review.......for me this is an excellent AOR album - FULL of hooks, and bloody great solos care of Mr Beach.

 

Yeah the musicianship's good, but who gives a toss when the songwriting's as lifeless as this? I love Moratti's voice but he sounds like he's phoned this one in and hardly ever actually pushes his voice at all. In fact it's just so bland it's offensive, and there are too few decent choruses on here (a lot of them sound exactly the same) to bother buying stuff like this.

 

who are the songwriters?

[phaffas]

Edguy - Tinnutus Sanctus

I played this once before without paying to close attention and my first thought was that "Tinnutus Sanctus" was German for pile of shit, but after one more spin it's not as bad as I first thought. There's some solid tunes but not nothing near as good as what Tobias does with Avantasia IMO.

 

Im surprised by all the TS hatred around the board last few days.... sure i think it was a let down, but it still blows away most stuff.

[Geoff]

Before I start:

 

1. Although, as usual, he's gone crazy, I'm kind of glad to see Tim's thoughts on the Moratti disc. I like it, quite a bit, but I don't quite think it got even close to the hype of certain un-named memberglens. There's some delicious and sultry mid-tempo melodic rock which was actually reminding me of the much loved (by me) disc from Shadows Fade, but I also found at least half the disc to be only okay. Don't get me wrong - certainly not bad. Just not brilliant either.

 

2. Agree with Matty-Boo regarding the Edguy disc. I ordered it recently for chumps change but sadly it must have been out of stock and I missed out, and I was quite disappointed. Sure, everyone rightly acknowledged it was disappointing and nowhere near as good as the 'Rocket ride' disc, but dudes, it wasn't that bad.

 

Now, to my spins:

 

Within Temptation - "Heart of everything" ; good one. A little syphonic in places, but generally just a good modern hard rock disc. Glad I picked this one up.

 

Tami Show - "Wanderlust" ; this started out pretty awful. Not awful, just pretty lame. But credit where it's due, it actually ended pretty well with the 2nd half of the disc. It's not my new favourite CD or even a million miles close to it, but the 2nd half may just have kept this off my trade list. Maybe. Decent female fronted AOR.

 

Age of Daze: "Hollywood Ending" ; I probably mentioned this once before, but I finally got a hard copy from Mark and it's not a bad disc. Vocal are really rough as nuts, in that Nickleback kind of way, but it's a solid CD. Really quite enjoyable modern hard rock.

 

All That Remains: "Overcome" ; I'd seen a few clowns mention this before, but I hadn't checked this out. I think I took a peek at their new CD, which left me unimpressed, so I think I forgot about the band. Anyway, turned up for chumps change (or free?) on Mark's list so I thought I'd try it and I have to say I'm glad I did. Again, not the best CD I ever heard, but it's pretty damn good modern metal. Quite melodic as well as heavy. Yeah, I dug it.

 

Shout - 'Shout Back' ; absolute garbage. I like their debut and despite being way too over the top, I don't even mind the 2nd CD. But this is dreadful, and nothing like the first two. Guitarwork is still incredible, when he plays. But the rock songs are bland and crap and the rest - jazz, funk, blues, acoustic... it's just utter garbage. In fact, the majority of the (very long) 2nd half of the CD is not even worth playing. Avoid this CD like hell.

 

Sha-Boom - 'The best of... Fiiire' ; after picking up their first 2 albums from Azintex recently I actually no longer need this and will try to trade it off, but I thought I may as well spin it before I try to get rid of it. They were never the best Scandi rock band by any means, and their latest CD from about 5 years back is BY FAR their best work, but I guess they're okay. A few decent party rockers on this one. An inoffensive band, I'd call them.

 

SEX Department - s/t ; after hearing their (his) 'Rock n' roll suicide' disc and liking it, I was keen to get this. Glad I did. Pretty good Italian glam. There is an accent, but the songs are actually pretty good. If you like glam, get it.

 

Mike Tramp & The Rock n' roll circus - 'Stand your ground' ; Jeez this guy bores me. He really does. It's really not too bad a CD and there's a few pretty decent songs after the first few clunkers. I recall about 2-3 pretty nice melodic tracks, but otherwise it's SO bland. SO safe and bland. And the war song on the end is just dreadful. Not really sure why, I just didn't like it at all. I haven't really seen this CD mentioned on the forum at all, and I kind of understand why. It's not woeful, but just not worth mentioning.

[phaffas]

 

Tami Show - "Wanderlust" ; this started out pretty awful. Not awful, just pretty lame. But credit where it's due, it actually ended pretty well with the 2nd half of the disc. It's not my new favourite CD or even a million miles close to it, but the 2nd half may just have kept this off my trade list. Maybe. Decent female fronted AOR.

 

Ive been playing this heaps lately... after the first few spins i couldnt remember it, but it down for a month or two .. came back and loved it. "Do you love enough" is damn catchy. Im going soft.

[Nightrain]

Airrace - Back To The Start

 

got a sneaky listen to the leaked yesterday. Hm, first song, "Keep On Going", kinda reminds me of Terra Nova uptempo style, a promising start. "When Baby" has great riffs and also another great one, but I found too many decent and average fillers here and there, among them are "Call me Anytime", title track, "Wrong Way Out", "Enough of Your Lovin".

 

this is basically a melodic rock album with classic Journey and Foreigner touch but not in a really good way. Don't know, I kinda find it hard to digest just like I did with Bruce Turgon's Places of Power in 2009. Anyone here like that album probably will also like this one, but this one is kinda bland and probably will mark around 6 or 6.5 for me initially, hopefully the next full spin will be better.

[TIM (2)]

ROB MORATTI - Victory

 

Solo disc from the ex-Final Frontier and Saga man with the love-it-or-hate-it high-pitched vocals. I've always liked his vocals, especially as with the Final Frontier stuff they were so high in the mix and dominated the music. Here it's standard pure AOR all the way and even some decent vocals - though it's all a bit workmanlike - can't save the material, which is dross. Nothing stands out and there are barely any decent hooks on the entire disc. IMHO the "Second Wave" disc was the best thing Moratti ever sung on, and this is so far removed from that it's hard to tell it's the same guy. AVOID.

 

Ha ha the viscious quill of Tim strikes again.

 

Seriously mate your tastes are so hard to judge. This is a disc I presumed that you would love - you know high quality AOR. lol!!

 

Dont be too put off by Tim's scathing review.......for me this is an excellent AOR album - FULL of hooks, and bloody great solos care of Mr Beach.

 

Yeah the musicianship's good, but who gives a toss when the songwriting's as lifeless as this? I love Moratti's voice but he sounds like he's phoned this one in and hardly ever actually pushes his voice at all. In fact it's just so bland it's offensive, and there are too few decent choruses on here (a lot of them sound exactly the same) to bother buying stuff like this.

 

who are the songwriters?

 

Himself (with a few co-writers). Produced it himself too. I would suggest he sticks to singing, but he doesn't even do that very well on here...

[TIM (2)]

DAVID COOK - This Loud Morning

 

Was quite looking forward to this after his classy previous disc, but the first spin was a bit underwhelming. It's all expertly written and sung but is very very similar in style to the last album - to the point where it becomes a bit tiresome. If you love Daughtry's stuff no doubt you'll love this too, but I hoped for a bit more variety in all honesty, and the last 3 or 4 songs are a struggle to sit through. That said, this opens with the mega-classic "Circadian" which is Cook's best ever tune by a million miles. Piano-led verses with a huge harmonic chorus make this about the best tune I've heard in 2011, and "Hard to Believe" isn't that far behind. Those are the two most melodic and hooky songs, but here's hoping the rest is a grower...

 

Nb: I've just seen that the first single is "The Last Goodbye" which is a staggering choice as single IMO, a weak pop/rock tune...

[Glen]

DAVID COOK - This Loud Morning

 

Nb: I've just seen that the first single is "The Last Goodbye" which is a staggering choice as single IMO, a weak pop/rock tune...

 

not heard it yet, but agree on this tune - he performed this on US Idol....and it was v under-whelming.

[Glen]

Before I start:

 

1. Although, as usual, he's gone crazy, I'm kind of glad to see Tim's thoughts on the Moratti disc. I like it, quite a bit, but I don't quite think it got even close to the hype of certain un-named memberglens. There's some delicious and sultry mid-tempo melodic rock which was actually reminding me of the much loved (by me) disc from Shadows Fade, but I also found at least half the disc to be only okay. Don't get me wrong - certainly not bad. Just not brilliant either.

 

 

Yeah to each their own. Ive played this through about 10 times, and I love it. To say (TIM!) that this album has no choruses or hooks again leaves me scratching my head. I actually much prefer his vocal performance here because for most part he doesnt sound like he's got his nuts in a vice like he does with FF. Will defo appeal to the AOR crew more than others..........be interested to hear what Swazi & Jez etc think?? Guys??

[TIM (2)]

 

be interested to hear what Swazi & Jez etc think?? Guys??

 

If they're not responding because they haven't got this yet, then if they PM me we'll soon rectify that. Frankly when I saw it was on Escape rather than Frontiers I should've known better...

[Swazi]

Before I start:

 

1. Although, as usual, he's gone crazy, I'm kind of glad to see Tim's thoughts on the Moratti disc. I like it, quite a bit, but I don't quite think it got even close to the hype of certain un-named memberglens. There's some delicious and sultry mid-tempo melodic rock which was actually reminding me of the much loved (by me) disc from Shadows Fade, but I also found at least half the disc to be only okay. Don't get me wrong - certainly not bad. Just not brilliant either.

 

 

Yeah to each their own. Ive played this through about 10 times, and I love it. To say (TIM!) that this album has no choruses or hooks again leaves me scratching my head. I actually much prefer his vocal performance here because for most part he doesnt sound like he's got his nuts in a vice like he does with FF. Will defo appeal to the AOR crew more than others..........be interested to hear what Swazi & Jez etc think?? Guys??

 

Don't worry, Glen ! I am with you on this one all the way. I love it !! I think "Second Wave" was his best FF job and this is coming very close.

[Geoff]

Kutless - 'To know that you're alive' ; this is a good one. I tried this band back in 2005-ish and they did little for me, then they released christian hymns and things like that so I kind of had nothing to do with them. However, this one popped up on Mark's list for a bargain so I picked it up. I like it, quite a bit. I don't know if I try some of their other albums, or just assume this is their only good one? Any help by other fans?