Label: Frontiers Music Srl.
Release date: 12. 11. 2021
Production: Alessandro Del Vecchio
Album length: 50.35 min
Genre: AOR
Rating: 8.0/10
Groundbreaker is a project that carries on the legacy of eighties AOR. Its main magnet for fans of melodic rock and AOR is the iconic vocalist Steve Overland, the lead voice of the long-running British AOR veterans FM. The project dropped its self-titled studio debut back in 2018. Clearly, the drive at Frontiers Music Srl. to keep this project alive is unshakable, so the label’s higher-ups rallied fresh forces to come up with enough material for a follow-up to a more-than-bold debut.
On the album »Groundbreaker« (2018, RockLine review), Overland’s main songwriting partner was Work of Art and W.E.T. guitarist Robert Sall. This time he’s out of the picture, and the bulk of the songwriting talent on »Soul To Soul« comes from Alessandro Del Vecchio, the do-it-all legend who also worked on the debut. He’s not the only songwriter on the new Groundbreaker album, but he’s the main one. Besides Del Vecchio and Overland, the writing credits for “Soul To Soul” also go to Stefano Lionetti (Lionville), Pete Alpenborg (Arctic Rain), Jan Akesson (Infinite & Divine) and Kristian Fyhr (Seventh Crystal). On guitar this time is the seasoned Swedish axeman Sven Larsson, who back in the day played with the legendary Street Talk, among others.
It’s hard to find flaws on the new album, especially if this is your first encounter with Overland’s voice and the project’s stylistic approach. Still, it’s clear that musically Soul To Soul brings nothing we haven’t heard before. In practice it neither surprises nor excites, except for the most devoted followers of the legendary singer’s life and work. And he is simply irreplaceable, brilliant once again in every vocal nuance of the new record. His voice stays identical down to the micron to the vocal character we remember from the classic FM days, when the eighties gave us, say, the album »Indiscreet«. That distinctive, instantly recognizable, piercing delivery with a pronounced soul swagger, which would fit phenomenally into pop music too, stays spotless on »Soul To Soul« as well.
It’s exactly this dominant persona, planted front and center in the compositions and wrapped in all the quirks of Steve Overland’s vocal engraving, that guarantees everyone will eagerly reach for the new Groundbreaker album again. That goes for those following the singer’s long career with FM as well as his other projects, whether his solo albums or, say, Lonerider and Shadowman. The stylistic differences between them don’t really matter. On the new Groundbreaker album too, the songwriting bows to Overland’s vocal characteristics, which once again shine intensely. There isn’t a speck of rust or any hint of wear and tear, something most of Overland’s generational peers can’t say. Unlike them, Steve’s voice keeps getting more mature with the years, like a good old wine. Overland is one of those phenomena about whom you can boldly conclude that, vocally, they only gain in power, range, flexibility and depth of expression as time goes on.
The musicians involved have done their job like dedicated studio session players and loyal legionnaires of Frontiers Music Srl. They delivered well-written material with studio execution that brings a new high-quality product on every level (production included) to the field of modern-day AOR revivalism, even if commercially the genre has been shoved deep underground for years. In fact, the album’s only flaw is a pretty standard one: it’s too long. Ten songs would have been plenty. The material follows the genre mold, which is proverbially clear and strictly limited, meaning there’s no room for any real songwriting adventures or experiments. That’s why albums like this, bound to recycling what’s already been said, quickly reveal the essence of their artistic nature, and so a bit of ‘dragging on’ does them more harm than good.
In short: everything holds up and it’s a quality new release, a breezy continuation of the story the debut started three years ago. No standout moments, and in line with what fans of Steve Overland’s vocal showcase expect, which is apparently perfectly fine with the ‘main client’ behind the new Groundbreaker album too, the leading figure at Frontiers Music Srl.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. Standing On The Edge Of A Broken Dream
2. Soul To Soul
3. Captain Of Our Love
4. Evermore
5. Wild World
6. Carrie
7. Fighting For Love
8. It Don’t Get Better Than This
9. There’s No Tomorrow
10. When Lightning Strikes
11. Til The End Of Time
12. Leap Of Faith
Lineup:
Steve Overland – vocals, guitar solo on Wild World
Sven Larsson – guitar
Nalle Pahlsson – bass
Herman Furin – drums
Alessandro Del Vecchio – keyboards
