New Music Review : AOR - LA Darkness : Album CD New Music Review by Craig Hartranft : Dangerdog Music Reviews

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AOR: LA Darkness

Melodic Rock

4.0/5.0

Website
Escape Music
Words: Craig Hartranft
Added: 02.03.2016

One of the great things about starting a band or musical project is that the musician or musicians involved gets to name said band. In a stroke of mad genius French composer and multi-instrumentalist Frederic Slama choose to name his project after the music genre he loves. AOR. He returns with his fifteen album, LA Darkness.

Frederic Slama

As you would suspect from Slama, he wrote, arranged, and produced the album. Then got a bunch of top flight vocalists and musicians to help him record his tunes. Vocalists include Jeff Scott Soto (Talisman, W.E.T), Steve Overland (FM, The Ladder), Kevin Chalfant (The Storm, 707, et al), Jesse Damon (Silent Rage, Kiss), Henry Small (Prism), Paul Sabu (Only Child, Kidd Glove, John Waite), Philip Bardowell (Unruly Child, Places Of Power,), and Rick Riso (Chasing Violets). Notable musicians include A-list guitarist and producer Tommy Denander helping out on guitar. Unfortunately, I can't tell you which artist sings on what song as it was not supplied by either Slama or Escape Music.

Now that we have that out of the way, what can be said of the songs? Two things can be said. One, this album is probably heavier than previous albums. Not in the sense of something like heavy metal. But more towards melodic hard rock, yet still in an AOR wrapper. The guitars are more present, with sharp brisk riffage and abundance of stingy solos. Said in a different way, there's not much of that breezy West Coast light rock which Slama has delivered before. Most everything rock pretty hard. Sure, One Foot In Heaven and Desire Turning Into Dust have lighter starts, but they turn quickly to guitar-centered rock songs. And perhaps that's the best description of LA Darkness. A final mention should be made of the last song, the instrumental Burning Rainbows. It's basically one long guitar solo sounding melodic, sharp, and smart. However, I'm sure if it's Slama on guitar or Denander.

The simple conclusion: LA Darkness is another fine and entertaining AOR project from Slama and friends, just a bit more towards edgier melodic hard rock. Recommended.

AOR - LA Darkness Promo

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