Norway - Rising Up From The Ashes
MTM Music

file under hardrock / aor

Guus: Norway is not a band from the northern regions of Europe (though such would be logical) but is hailing from the United States. The band has been around for quite some time now, and after a silence of six years the band is back at the front with ‘Rising Up From The Ashes’, their third tale in the AOR world. The music on it has strong references to the AOR from the 80s; a wall of keyboards, beautiful harmonic background vocals and every now and than fierce guitar work from guitarist Jim Santos. The rest of the line-up is completed by newcomer Dave Baldwin (ex Tradia, Departure, Voices) on keys and vocals, Marty Brasington on drums and Joe Slattery on bass. Like I already said the band plays an old-fashioned card, but do it very well. Best songs on the album probably are ´Save Me´, ´Anything At All´, the Journey like ´Since You’ve Been Gone´, the ballad ´Won’t Let You Down´ and the long closing track ´Haunted´. The only I have to bitch about is the production that is a bit flat. With a more ‘heavy’ production the individual instruments would have sound much better. Nevertheless Norway succeeded in making the first cool AOR record this year, and that is a good start for 2007.

Score: 80/100 (details)

http://www.norwayrocks.com