Ok, so the first album I will be reviewing is the album Sunstorm, by the band of the same name. Now, I know what you all are thinking, that I said most of my music comes from the 70's, 80's and early 90's. While that's very true, this band (Sunstorm) is a super-group that was formed by members of bands from the 80's. Sunstorm was a project formed by members of Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow and Pink Cream 69 (German Power Metal band) in 2005. I decided to start the blog with this album because, personally, the lead vocalist of this band (Joe Lynn Turner) is one of my favourites and figured why not start there. However, albums after this will be chosen at random by my iTunes. So lets get this review started!
Sunstorm- Sunstorm (2006)
Genre: AOR (Album Oriented Rock)/ Hard Rock
Similar Artists: Survivor, Journey, Bad English, Tyketto, Hardline, Damn Yankees
Members:
Joe Lynn Turner (Deep Purple/Rainbow)- Lead Vocals
Dennis Ward (Pink Cream 69)- Bass, Backing Vocals, Additional Guitars, Keyboards
Uwe Rietenaur (Pink Cream 69)- Rhythm and Lead Guitars
Chris Schmidt- Drums
Jochen Weyer- Keyboards
Songs:
1. Keep Tonight
2. Fame And Fortune
3. Heart Over Mind
4. This Is My Heart
5. Strength Over Time
6. Another You
7. Fist Full Of Heat
8. Love's Gone Wrong
9. Night Moves
10. Danger Of Love
11. Making Up For Lost Time
12. Arms Of Love
Summary:
Ok, so, I thought about doing the whole "individually review every song" thing, but realized that it would take to long and eventually I would just start to repeat the same things over and over again. So I decided to just do a summary of the album, which is a little bit easier. As far as how the album sounds, its exactly what you would expect from former members of Deep Purple/ Rainbow and Pink Cream 69. The album has a lot of Hard Rock songs ala Pink Cream 69 and Deep Purple, and also has a few ballads ala Rainbow (when Joe Lynn Turner fronted the band). The album starts off with "Keep Tonight" and "Fame And Fortune" which are more of Hard Rock tracks that (with JLT's vocals) could have easily been on Deep Purple's "Slaves And Masters" (the album JLT sang on). They also have very airy keyboards you can really only hear during the choruses to highlight JLT's vocals.
Then, "Heart Over Mind" is a nice ballad to transition into the next 3 songs which are basically all ballads or softer rock tracks. "Heart Over Mind" also features a nice piano/bass intro that builds to the vocals and the chorus where the whole band really shines. The next track, "This Is My Heart" is less of a ballad, even though its sandwiched between ballads, could have easily been a heavier Journey track or even Bad English. It follows a similar progression to "Fame And Fortune" and "Keep Tonight". "Strength Over Time" and "Another You" are both ballads with heavier choruses similar to "Heart Over Mind" with more emotive solos and magnificent keyboard playing.
The next four songs; "Fist Full Of Heat","Love's Gone Wrong","Night Moves" and Danger Of Love", are much heavier tracks similar to "Keep Tonight". However, "Love's Gone Wrong" has a very interesting intro with the use of a wah-wah pedal that gives it a different sound then the rest of the album, not to mention the different percussion used in the bridge of the song to give it a different feel than the rest of the album. "Night Moves" and "Danger Of Love" are also very different songs from the others on the albums. The songs starts off with a piano/keyboard synth intros and slowly builds to an almost Hard Rock choruses and lull back to the intro and build again.
The final two songs on the album are probably the weakest songs on the album, not because they are the last songs, but because they are ballads similar to "Heart Over Mind" that never really build to anything.They sound similar to songs that could be found on any Journey album. They are really just a showcase for the keyboards and JLT's vocal ability. Its just not a strong finish to the album that I would have hoped for but are still great songs.
Overall, this album get a 9/10 rating, it would have gotten a 10/10 if it had a stronger ending. Even though many of the tracks follow similar progressions to each other, the overall sound of the album rarely ever gets stale or hard to listen to because each song is unique in its songwriting. The production value of the album and the writing is just fantastic. Joe Lynn Turner's vocals on the album just prove that, even 20 years later, he can still hit all the same notes he could on any Rainbow record he did or even the Deep Purple record he did. The guitar playing is phenomenal as well as the keyboard playing and all around musicianship of the band. So, if your looking for a nice AOR/ Hard Rock band to get into or just want to hear some awesome Hard Rock, pick up Sunstorm on iTunes. Its worth the money.
DUDE! Rock on.
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