Label: Escape Music Ltd.
Release date: 14.06.2019
Production: Robert Berry
Album length: 54.24 min
Genre: AOR / Hard Rock
Rating: 8.5 / 10
Alliance are a band that probably only those who are truly into AOR and melodic rock, and who keep digging through both down to the last detail, will know. The band is made up of seasoned rock’n’roll old cats, and even though these guys, in their otherwise creatively rich and loud careers, have put out very few albums under the Alliance name, all of the material they’ve released can boast the superlatives of outstanding quality and songwriting perfection.
The backstory of the whole band is a fun one, in the sense of how hard it was for its members to find the right stars aligned to get it going at all. Two members of the current »Fire and Grace« lineup, which is now a trio, David Lauser and Gary Pihl, came from Sammy Hagar’s band, after Hagar broke it up in 1985 to join Van Halen. Alliance were already in their infancy back in the late eighties, and just when it looked like the lineup could start doing some serious work, vocalist, songwriter, producer and bassist Robert Berry dashed off to London to join GTR after a call from Steve Howe. And Gary Pihl got a call soon after from Tom Scholz, who lured him over to Boston. Anyway, the whole thing dragged on a bit, and in that time Berry, together with Keith Emerson and Carl Palmer, recorded and released the album »3«. Then in 1993, after keyboardist Alan Fitzgerald joined (he had also played briefly with Hagar in the seventies, but came to Alliance from Night Ranger), things finally got rolling.
»Fire And Grace« is their sixth studio album and follows »Road To Heaven« after a solid 12 years that flew by in a flash. Alan Fitzgerald is no longer in the lineup and Alliance put the album out as a trio, with Berry taking care of the keyboards. That’s the main thing you notice about the new album. The keyboards are a touch less in the spotlight and guitars dominate the sound (the band also beefs up the sound with some acoustics), while the production manners have actually held on to the character of the earlier albums. Berry, as the main songwriter, has once again delivered a bunch of polished little songs that knock on the hearts of nostalgics for those classic times when arena rock and the budding AOR got wind in their sails, somewhere in the middle of the second half of the seventies, when the prog rock dinosaurs were being swiftly picked off by the punk virus and the surviving prog »defectors«, through changes in style and sound, contributed massively to the development of the AOR genre. So what »Fire And Grace« kind of embodies is a successful recreation of the vibe of the old days, of the REO Speedwagon, Boston, Journey, Kansas, Styx type. One thing is interesting, though. All three members of today’s Alliance grew up heavily on the blues and were fascinated by guitar heroes like Clapton and Page, and even though the compositions are dosed with a tangible amount of pomp and infectious chorus melodies, the album carries an internalized rhythm and blues, and also a traceable southern rock »oomph«, or punchiness, which is no surprise, since Pihl and Lauser once spent time with Hagar.
Positive vibes, optimism. For today’s times that reads awfully strange, and yet. The album speaks to you right from the opening (Don’t Stop the Wheel Turning, Good Life). In short, the band knows exactly how a song has to be built to light up full and hard. That said, compared to their earlier days and albums, you can feel that this time the sound puts a bigger focus on flirting with the internalized rhetoric of the blues and southern rock too, which means the new album isn’t as purebred AOR as the guiding ethos of past Alliance works, but that in no way lessens its appeal .
One thing is clear. An album like »Fire and Grace« can only be made by a generation of old cats like these, and it confirms that Alliance remain attractive even today, for all those who aren’t convinced or drawn in by the revivalism of the new generation. It’s interesting how this band, which it would almost be more fitting to call an occasional project, was repeatedly pushed onto the sidelines. So we record three creative eras. The first stretches into the second half of the nineties, the second into 2007 and 2008, when two albums came out, and with »Fire And Grace« we’ve lived to see the third era too. The only problem is that there are gaps of ten years and more between the eras.
There’s no need to go on about the excellent chemistry that ties together the expressive range of these three musicians. Fitzgerald is missed now and then, but the thing still »holds water«. The music grabs you instantly. In everything it serves up, and in generous portions over a good 54 minutes. All of you who know the band and took it to heart thanks to the excellent body of its past work won’t miss much with the new Alliance album either. Experience, know-how, routine, seasoning, and a long twelve-year stretch of gathering solid songwriting ideas and solutions. All of it has added up once again in just the right place.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. Don’t Stop The Wheel Turning
2. Good Life
3. Uncertain
4. I’ll Have Some Of That
5. Fire And Grace
6. Raise Your Glass
7. Time 8. Real Thing
9. Reason To Walk Away
10. Fast Forward To Last Night
11. Change Of Heart
12. The Same
13. You Are The Heroes
Lineup:
Robert Berry – vocals, bass guitar, keyboards
Gary Pihl – guitar
David Lauser – drums
