Album Review - Firenote - Firenote - RevelationZ Magazine

More Finnish metallers.
And that's good news indeed.
This time it's metal dressed up in extremely attractive AOR stylings.

It never gets overly macho or aggressive. There's often a keyboard fill or frill to soften a metallised riff, or a sweetening hook to temper an ironclad verse.
It's metal with a marshmallow centre. AOR with a steely spine. Whichever way you look at it, it works.
If all the stadium rock of the last 25 years was mainlined into the result of a frenzied one night stand between Brother Firetribe and Axxis, you would get Firenote.
It's far from original, but it's impressive how band and producer find ways of investing old rock clichés with atmosphere and vigour, pumped up to epic proportions.

JR Hammond's dominant keyboards sound like they've been recorded in a cathedral, which suits the religious intensity of Rick's vowel mangling, OTT vocals.
It's down to Isko's guitar to keep the music grounded. His anchoring riffs and quixotic, melodic solos are presented in a measured, arena filling style.

First single, 'Danger' has a genuine, suspended in eighties' aspic style, whipped into contemporary metal shape by shrill vocal harmonies, low slung riffs and dancing, prancing, neoclassical keyboards.
It's a similar story on many other tracks, where the band combine the variegated musical textures of 20^th century AOR and Melodic Rock to create something new, while retaining the elements that gave them their originality.

Like the melodic metal gang vocals on 'Sara LaFountain's shouty chorus, juxtaposed with a Schon-esque solo. Or the formidable, metallised craftsmanship and Journey-like histrionics of the balladic 'My Love Will Never Die'.
Yet, on 'Don't Ever Fall In Love' the keyboard driven pendulum swings swiftly into cheesy Eurorock territory, and you'll find that you just can't resist that sweet, mouthwatering taste.
Even potboilers like 'Love Me Or Let Me Live' and 'Mayday' rattle along with a breezy, vigorous momentum, exuding more than just a run of the mill mediocrity.

Putting aside the throwaway closing track, and ignoring the lyrical clichés, the perfect AOR/metal mix of last but one track, 'Heartbreaker', sees the band exit the album on an upward trajectory. Not quite going out in a blaze of glory, but at least displaying an ebullient energy.

One to watch, no question.

Written by Brian
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
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