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Frontiers [Release date 08.04.22]
First Signal started life as a collaboration between Harry (Harem Scarem) Hess and Denis (Pink Cream 69) Ward. Two big names in the melodic rock genre. This is the third album since without Ward. Daniel Flores stepped into his shoes with the 2016 release, One Step Over The Line.
Anyone who’s heard the previous 3 releases will know that First Signal is neither a wannabe of Harem Scarem nor indeed, of Marcie Free’s Signal. (which in a way was a disappointment to many rock fans).
But all 3 delivered good quality, well written melodic rock. Flores’s occasionally characterless production was redeemed by the calibre of the material.
It all comes apart with this new release.
Anyone in anyway familiar with the genre knows that the real trick is merging the past with the present, in a manner that may even resound with general audiences as well as aficionados.
Sad to say, Closer To The Edge is a more than fitting title here. Too many of the songs balance awkwardly on the slippery slope that leads to the cliff edge of mediocrity.
Most seem constructed from cuttings brushed up from the studio floor on a Harem Scarem off day. The PR stuff indicates that the ubiquitous Alessandro DelVecchio and his sometime writing partner, Pete Alpenborg were involved.
Thanks to Hess’s vocals generating some much needed excitement, only ‘Show Me The Way’, ‘One More Time’ and the title track ‘Close To The Edge’ break free from Flores’s milky, lightweight production.
When they do, they move out of the shadow of the artists’ past glories, and remind us just why we fell in love with this genre in the first place. **1/2
Review by Brian McGowan
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