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Love Under Cover: Into The Night

AOR/Melodic Hard Rock

4.0/5.0

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Escape Music
by Craig Hartranft,  15.01.2014

Formed by multi-instrumentalist Mikael Carlsson several years ago, and featuring Mikael Erlandsson (Last Autumn’s Dream, Salute, et al) on vocals, Martin Kronlund (Gypsy Rose, Phenomena, Salute) on guitars, and Perra Johnsson (Coldspell) on drums, Love Under Cover returns with their second effort, Into The Night. The band strays little from their 2012 debut offering classic Eighties AOR melodic hard rock on the Scandi side of things.

Love Under Cover: same picture from 2012.

Actually, Love Under Cover will probably remind you of the bands represented by the parts of the whole: Last Autumn’s Dream, Salute, but also Treat as well. There's strong vocals and vocal harmonies, bright melodies, big hooks in lyrics and arrangements, solid guitar solos, and a tight rhythm section delivering a sweet rock groove. It's all the elements you need for fine melodic hard rock, and this crew should know how to bring it together as they've all been doing for better than 25 years.

While the formula and sound may be familiar, in the case of this album, there's a bit more edge to some songs. Songs like Miracle, The Game Is On, Playboy No. 7, and Crushing Stones (best song here) have a deeper, heavier, feel thanks to the driving rhythm section and fat riffage. You might not want to call it metal, but it could come close. Other songs, like Fantasy Man or the ballads Toy Soldier and No Place Like Home revisit classic AOR. In the end, it's, as I said before, classic Swedish-style Eighties AOR melodic hard rock. Except no substitutes. Recommended.

Note: All Amazon advertising in this review first benefits the artist, then Craig Hartranft also receives a residual. Click, and thanks for your support.

Love Under Cover strays little from their 2012 debut offering more classic Scandi-style Eighties AOR melodic hard rock with Into The Night.

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The Powell Payne project, created in 2022 is the collaboration of Mark "Penfold Powell (ex-drummer of Psycho Kiss) and Adam Payne (former vocalist of Airrace). With guitarist Adam Davies and keyboard player ... [ Read More ]