Artist: Bush, Stan
Label: Frontiers Records
Release: 2007
This stretch of the year (spring, 2007) has brought a good few excellent offerings in the AOR rock genre. Yes, you read that right. A thing that’s supposedly dead and forgotten today, but that was thriving commercially 20 years ago, has delivered a great new solo effort from Joe Lynn Turner, the ex-Kick members united in WildKard with the album “Megalomania”, an insanely impressive record from The Ladder with FM singer Steve Overland on vocals, and Night Ranger waking up again after 10 years…
Stan Bush is holding up well too. He delivers polish. The production is practically flawless. Crystal clear, keyboards and guitar riffing in perfect balance, a great leveling between the rhythm section, keyboards and guitar, with the main spotlight casting its beam on Stan’s excellent vocals and putting them in the absolutely dominant spot in the sound picture. The guy thought of string arrangements too, and of adding classical piano, which often sits in perfect conversation with the classic rock punch that the guitar solos and the main riff itself bring (the ballad The First Time). The work of a mature, seasoned old fox. It’s hard to believe that an artist can release their ninth studio album and still deliver so much quality that you can talk about a standout peak of their career.
The songs on “In This Life” are varied. In that respect the album can boast a wonderful amount of dynamic variety. That variety is so appealing, in fact, that while listening you can barely wait for the next track on the record, whether it’s a bombastic anthem, a ballad-leaning number, or a simpler mid-tempo song.
The upbeat I’ll Never Fall, which opens the record, just sucks us 20 years back into the past with its melodic punch. The man keeps going with his polished display of AOR purism in I Got A Thing For You and This Moment, which recall the best stuff from the Stan Bush & Barrage album “Every Beat Of My Heart” .
The album has a passionate ballad touch in I Can’t Cry, The First Time and in the especially tender Southern Train (a dramatic acoustic ending to the album). A trio of faster rocking moves in the second half of the album is kicked off by Long, Long Way, with a more aggressive approach (by Stan Bush standards) that you’re normally not used to from the guy, while Stan is particularly expressive vocally in Take It All Away, with another one of the hardest-hitting chorus riffs on the record, and the last of the trio, the title track In This Life, is the album’s peak, a typical example of the perfect union of a heart that yearns for the eighties with modern sonic approaches in the production itself.
When I first skimmed through this, I was afraid the dose of pathetic sappiness would be too big. But I was dead wrong. It’s measured at just the right distance. Stan Bush has put together a classic eighties AOR record, and it’s the keyboards in particular that carry you straight into that era with no detours whatsoever. “In This Life” contains 11 polished AOR songs. It’s a textbook example of how to make a quality AOR rock album without sacrificing a scrap of the musical ideals you stand for. You stay true to tradition, yet you keep up with the technological novelties the studio offers, and you know how to put them to good use so your album has a modern sound. This is an album that’s really aimed at a mature audience, one that strives for melodic perfection, for polished vocals, for a fully realized sound picture. It’s hard to get more classic than classic. The album deserves all your attention, and I probably won’t be far off if I predict this is an early contender for AOR record of 2007!
Lineup
Stan Bush – vocals
Holger Fath – guitar, keyboards
Dirk Nagel – keyboards
Lance Morrison – bass guitar
Matt Laug – drums
Production
Holger Fath
Tracklist
1. I’ll Never Fall
2. I Got A Thing For You
3. I Can’t Cry
4. In This Moment
5. Waiting For You
6. First Time
7. Long Long Way
8. Over You
9. Take It All The Way
10. In This Life
11. Southern Rain
Running time: 50.21
