Album review: S.A.Y – Orion

S-A-Y - Orion

MelodicRock Records [Release date 22.05.15]

S.A.Y are Swedish and ‘Orion’ is yet another melodic rock record from the Scandinavian melodic rock factory that keeps churning out releases like it was 1986 all over again.

Who are S.A.Y then?  Perhaps friends of H.E.A.T and W.E.T…well maybe not as vocalist Peter Grundström and guitarist Jan Åkesson have been together since 2006 under the name StoneLake but have previously been together in Whitelight between 1984 and 1987…yep I’ve never heard of either of these bands either…

So back to ‘Orion’ then…what we have here is eleven bog standard melodic rock songs which are all competently played but they are all unfortunately lacking that magic touch. From opener Tragedy through to Under Your Spell everything just passes by in a blur.

The other issue is that of vocals…the press release calls Peter Grundström’s vocals as distinctive whereas I would call them high pitched and irritating.

Not sure where MelodicRock Records keep finding these bands but they need to start improving their strike rate…the phrase “quality control” springs to mind…

First impressions of ‘Orion’ were actually good but repeated plays just served to reveal how mediocre it actually is…bargain bin fodder is this one…  **

Review by Phil Berisford


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