Label: Cargo Records UK
Release date: 20. 11. 2020
Production: Holger Fath
Album length: 47.14 min
Genre: AOR
Rating: 8.0/10
Stan Bush is a true “survivor.” The eighties were thirty years ago. Fond memories of them really did stick around, if you breathed and lived them. Musically too. But the guy just won’t quit. Every album he puts out blasts you back more than 30 years, and you stay there for a good three quarters of an hour. In those carefree eighties. A nostalgic run of evergreen hits spins up from the days when rock was raised and lovingly tended on the radio, when action-movie superheroes like Jean Claude Van Damme and his ilk were beating up the bad guys (Stan Bush wrote music for the films “Kickboxer” and “Startblood”), and Tom Cruise was goofing around in the sky in “Top Gun.”
With his new album, “Dare To Dream” – his 12th overall, and the man has always had a thing for dreams, since his 2010 album is called “Dream Of Dreams” – Stan Bush serves up eleven new songs that are, from head to toe, a tribute to those golden times of the “distant past.” The lyrics of “The 80’s” are about exactly that. And it’s downright incredible that, with a view of the near future that’s probably pretty hazy, he still manages to hold on to that kind of bubbling optimism.
The songs have a rousing, ceremonial feel and that famously voluptuous pomp. The bombast without which an AOR album like this would instantly be stripped of its essence. The positive messages are all here: never give up, always follow your dreams, set off carefree on a path through fire… So the man isn’t reinventing the wheel; he works like the “Angus Young of AOR,” just in a different genre range. He has once again perfectly repackaged and served up a recipe he’s mastered and conformistically enjoys in its safe shelter. The kind that fires you up again and again. Simple as that. “Dare To Dream” throws you, instantly and with great conviction, straight back 35 years. Stan Bush, who released his self-titled debut in 1983, knows what he’s doing and has it all figured out when it comes to writing instantly catchy AOR.
So, the new album isn’t a surprise anymore. It’ll thrill the faithful again, that’s for sure. Let’s say it lands right in the middle of Bush’s discography. It’s not among the peaks, but it sits in a quality middle ground. A very solid piece of work all around. This album, too, has its own “Rocky” in the track Heat of Attack – though the album will be close to fans of Survivor, which is no longer news. The man remains a master songwriter. Every song hits that hypnotic catchiness with big, memorable choruses, standing out among them the aforementioned Heat of Attack, the hungry, striking opener Born To Fight, which is used as the soundtrack in the Japanese action cartoons BAKI and Kenghan Ashura. Then there’s the excellent half-ballad A Dream Of Love, which opens gently in the verse in the style of Foreigner or something like Missin You (John Waite), until the great pre-chorus and chorus take over. One of the atmospheric highlights of the album.
Of course, Bush made the new album mostly on his own. He was helped only by his loyal collaborator Holger Fath, who handled the production and contributed guitars and bass. Production-wise, the album sounds thoroughly “eighties.” Okay, the drums are programmed, but it’s done brilliantly. You can’t tell the difference. The sonic landscape gets its depth from the striking contrast between rustling synth curtains and piercing guitar phrases, and at the center of it all is Bush’s excellent vocal, still carved out for AOR and ripening like good old wine.
“Dare to Dream” grabs you and carries you off. An album, then, that the faithful were of course expecting. And Bush won’t quit. He follows his musical tradition and his dreams blindly and loyally, and he dares to dream. Relived with feeling once again! In doing so, he’s simply becoming a genre icon!
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. Born To Fight
2. Dare To Dream
3. The Times of Your Life
4. A Dream Of Love
5. The 80’s
6. Live And Breathe
7. Heat Of Attack
8. Dream Big
9. True Believer
10. Never Give Up
11. Home
Line-up:
Stan Bush – vocals
Holger Fath – guitar, bass
