New Music Review : About Us - 2022 Debut Album : CD Album Music Review : Dangerdog Music Reviews : Craig Hartranft

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About Us: About Us

Melodic Hard Rock/AOR

4.5/5.0

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Frontiers Music
Words: Craig Hartranft
Added: 07.11.2022 | Released: 11.11.2022

As an American and Westerner, when somebody mentions India, strange, unusual, and sometimes humorous things come to mind. Bollywood and poverty. Class stratification and Mahatma Gandhi. Tasty food, holy cows knee deep in rivers, and cluttered unreliable power grids. But for music? Melodic hard rock or AOR isn't one of my first thoughts. Perhaps, with many other South Asian provinces, when it comes to heavy metal, I think extreme metal, mostly death metal.

About Us

However, About Us from Nagaland is more the former: a classic melodic hard rock band with conventional AOR characteristics. About Us is a fine discovery by our friends at Frontiers Music. The band has the rhythm and groove of classic, melodic vocals and terrific gang vocal harmony, a dash of keyboards, and very strong guitar work. These things are captured in experienced song writing. Every song delivers AOR accessibility form song melody to catchy refrains to soaring guitar solos. I would suggest you could buy this album for the fiery guitar work alone. Some listeners might find vocalist Sochan Kikon difficult to understand depending how heavy the song is, yet he still has a melodic presence. In one sense, he reminds me of Arnel Pineda from Journey wherein his native accent doesn't always make American English lyrics clear. But it still works

About Us' song writing also gives listeners some variety and intrigue. For instance, both Rock On Top and Rise have some metal edge merged with rock groove, yet also offer subtle twists in arrangement that give them both groove and spark. They are also two songs where Mr Kikon comes across more strong and clear. Alternatively, the AOR angle comes out quite strong in the rhythmic riffs and up tempo beat and groove within Our Fairyland and Right Now. True AOR ballads come with Loaded Love and Open Your Heart. The former is more upbeat and turns open solid groove, vocal harmony, and synth embellishment. It has something of a Westcoast feeling but, perhaps arranged in another way with some steel guitar, it could be an American country song. The latter is the mellow one, turning upon vocal and vocal harmony with piano. In both, fine guitar solos rise.

All said, About Us' debut album is a strong and entertaining album of AOR-infused melodic hard rock made so by terrific song writing and gifted musicianship. Easily recommended.

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