Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Grand Illusion
Label: AOR Heaven Records
Release: 2011
Running time: 56:04
Rating: 4.5/5
The sixth studio album from Sweden’s Grand Illusion is definitely the best record of their entire career. The band, whose members have been musically active in one way or another since the early eighties, came back to life in 2010 with the comeback album “Brand New World”, ending a long hiatus. You could call it a solid, nice comeback record, but it was missing a bit of spark. It never made you want to spin it again and again in the CD player, and the memory of it faded far too quickly.
These trailblazers of the tried-and-true AOR/melodic rock path are, of course, musical perfectionists who leave nothing to chance and always want to squeeze the very best out of their creative talents! That “Scandinavian” musical philosophy can’t be denied, like a Saab or Volvo engine. Honest and the only right way. For the new album “Prince Of Paupers” the band kept working with two seasoned masters, Tim Pierce (Rick Springfield) and one of the best drummers in the world, Gregg Bissonette!
We can safely say that “Prince Of Paupers” slots into the spectrum of melodic rock releases for the European market right where the new Treat album could sit, and we’ll have to wait patiently another year or so for that one. Of course, it’s no clone at all! In fact, “Prince Of Paupers” redefines Grand Illusion, who in production (not in style) are now closer to Treat than to the AOR purists and fellow Swedes Bad Habit. What’s especially surprising on the new album is the punchy, wound-up sound of the production, which brings the guitar riffs right up to your ears. On the previous record they were still a bit “muffled” in the overall sonic picture.
Let me not beat around the bush. “Prince Of Paupers” is the album Gradn Illusion had been searching for ever since “Brand New World”. They built on that record with its successor in exactly the elements you could miss on an otherwise perfectly decent predecessor, so that it could finally “ignite” at full blast.
“Prince Of Paupers” has it all. A set of highly inspired songs that, despite the staked-out AOR template, achieve remarkable flexibility and colorful variety in their lead motifs! That goes for the excellent, hard-hitting ballad So Faraway, where the lead guitar solo comes from one of the greatest guitar masters on the planet, his excellency and most illustrious Mr. Steve Lukather, as well as for the balladesque Believe In Miracles, all the way to the dark, “Rainbow-style” Eyes Of Ice.
We can’t overlook the contributions of the experienced veteran Tim Pierce and the promising Bosnian guitarist Muris Varajic! This time both of them do a great job laying down just the right guitar parts, which in the solos deepen the drama theater and keep the songs wonderfully dynamic, flowing and compact. Over them hangs an exceptionally pompous, bombastic veil of festive drama theater, which is mostly positive and optimistic in direction. This touch ignites even more convincingly and intensely in the first half of the album, and Grand Illusion return to such feelings toward the end of the record with the superb On And On, deepened further by the no less impressive, “Toto-style” Under The Wire.
This album hits with extraordinary contrasting intensity. The vocal harmonies surrounding the melodically clean, wide-ranging lead vocals of both singers are hair-splittingly optimized and, in their perfect “polish”, an ideal example for other bands looking for the true AOR face in their sound! The contrasts are deepened by the nicely highlighted sonic structure of the rhythm section. The communication between the warm, voluminous bass (which embodies the great payoff of slipping extra melodic structures into the songs) and the dynamic drum “stampede” of the ever-reliable champion of the drum fortress Gregg Bissonette is an equal element this time. It tips the scales toward the conclusion that “Pricne Of Paupers” is one of the strongest AOR releases to come out in Europe in 2011. The touch of captured festive pomp on this album is superb, gripping you intensely under the skin, and the songs ignite instantly. Right from the first listen.
Grand Illusion’s development over the last two years recalls the evolution and upgrade of the musical vocabulary of their fellow Swedes Work Of Art. With their latest studio releases in 2011, both bands have in fact reached the optimum of true AOR melodic, pompous perfection. Each in their own way. “Prince Of Paupers” is the benchmark album for its successor, which will show whether Grand Illusion can hold on to the level of this high-quality form that they reach in their newfound inspiration in this new era with “Prince Of Paupers”. You can’t demand more from a band, and to this day all the true devotees of the European approach to AOR and melodic rock have undoubtedly bowed deeply to this album.
Line-up
Peter Sundell – vocals, backing vocals
Per Svensson – vocals, backing vocals
Anders Rydholm – keyboards, rhythm guitar, bass
Gregg Bissonette – drums
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Steve Lukather (solo, Toto) – guitar solo on track no. 4
Jay Graydon (Airplay, Planet 3) – guitar solo on track no. 2
Tim Pierce (Rick Springfield) – rhythm guitars and guitar solos on tracks no. 5, 6, 8, 9. 10, 12
Muris Varajic – guitar solo on tracks no. 1, 3, 7, 9, 11
Robert Sall (Work Of Art) – guitar solo on track no. 13
Paul Buckmaster – orchestral arrangements, synthesizers on track no. 1
Kjell Klaesson – acoustic guitar on track no. 9
Staffan Stavert – keyboards on tracks no. 10 and 13
Production
Anders Rydholm
Track list
1. Gates Of Fire
2. Better Believe It
3. Prince Of Paupers
4. So Faraway
5. St. Teresa’s Love
6. Through This War
7. Eyes Of Ice
8. Gone
9. Believe In Miracles
10. On And On
11. Under The Wire
12. Winds Of Change
13. Not For Sale*
*… bonus track for the Japanese market
