Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Boulevard
Label: Melodic Rock Records
Release: 2017
Running time: 50:57
Rating: 5/5
What’s spinning in my CD player right now is actually the third studio album from Canadian AOR legends Boulevard, who have woken up and risen from the dead after 27 years, since their outstanding »Into the Street« came out. The band had already shown signs of life with the live DVD »Boulevard – Live from Gastow«, released in 2015.
After 27 years, Boulevard remain a sextet in these new times, too. Four members of the new lineup are the same as on »Into the Street«, including the exceptional vocalist David Forbes. The new members are guitarist Dave Corman and bassist Cory Curtis.
You can safely call »Boulevard IV – Luminescence« one of the best albums of true-blue AOR, or 100% AOR character, to come out not just this year, but across the whole past decade. It simply doesn’t get any deeper than this. The album effortlessly picks up where the band’s previous two albums left off, and it’s the very definition of absolute brilliance and perfection in production and songwriting. The tracks sound today like a guitar pop from the eighties, miles away from anything current, but the guitar is an extremely active building block in every moment of the album, so this is a genuine AOR record lost in time and space, one that just happened to come out three decades late. Better late than never.
The compositions are wildly varied in their ideas. Every detail of the songwriting and arranging is woven together with incredible, filigree-fine craftsmanship, so they complement each other perfectly in their contrasts and coexist in remarkable harmony. There’s dynamics aplenty on this album. The warmth of low, vibrant tones, the superb integration of the guitar phrasing, Forbes’ deeply heartfelt, emotional and commanding vocals, which have stayed untarnished through all these years of the band’s silence. Then there are the signature layers of synths that keep the album’s bombastic appeal and a highly vibrant atmosphere full of that typical eighties AOR pomp. Eighties to the bone, it couldn’t be more eighties if it tried. An erotic alto sax weaves into the “mid-eight” passages and the phrases too. Everything is in its place. Exactly where it needs to be. In fact, everything stayed right where it was. Untouched and, overall, upgraded with maturity. In every virtue of songwriting and in reaching artistic brilliance within the AOR genre.
This is an album you listen to with great pleasure, and you can’t stop marveling at all the finesse, the details and how much effort and dedication went into it. Experience is experience. No two ways about it. It’s comparable to the perfectionism of bands like Toto, Genesis (of the eighties and nineties), Mr. Mister, Level 42 and Mike And The Mechanics. An outstanding piece of work, an exceptional achievement! No less, no more. AOR fans, don’t wait, just grab it right away for your sweetest private CD collection.
Lineup
David Forbes – vocals
Mark Holden – saxophones
Andrew Johns – keyboards, backing vocals
Randall Stoll – drums, percussion
Dave Corman – guitar
Cory Curtis – bass guitar
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Keith Scott – guitar on Slippin Away
Al Vermue – guitar on Slippin Away
Production
Mark Holden, Dave Corman & Eric Mosher
Track list
1. Out of the Blue0 (3:56)
2. Life is a Beautiful Thing (4:11)
3. Laugh or Cry (4:48)
4. What I’d Give (5:15)
5. Come Together (4:49)
6. Runnin’ Low (4:36)
7. I Can’t Tell You Why (4:03)
8. Confirmation (4:40)
9. Slippin’ Away (5:45)
10. What Are You Waiting For (4:12)
11. Don’t Stop the Music (4:36)
