Label: Escape Music
Release date: 9/18/2020
Production: Brian Anthony
Album length: 48.28 min
Genre: AOR/Hard Rock
Rating: 8.0/10
Among AOR fans, Steve Overland is pretty much a sacred vocal icon. I don’t know how many people in Slovenia even know, listen to or follow this rather archaic genre. It enjoys a strongly revivalist following thanks to loads of new bands, especially from the Scandinavian corner of the planet. But it’s a genre that was put on its feet by the commercially massive rock acts Journey, Foreigner, Boston, Night Ranger and Survivor. So there’s no messing around with it, even though a bit of introductory schooling is in order for the citizens of a republic where, back in the day, there was obviously a mandatory school vaccination program against AOR.
Well, British AOR was actually born right at the turn of the seventies into the eighties. That’s when the self-titled debut by the band “Wildfire” (1980) came out, the only one from that lineup. It was also where the singer mentioned at the start first showed up in front of a wider audience, and not long after he founded one of the most important British AOR bands, FM. Their album “Indiscreet” is one of the foundational records that music lovers climb once they start getting acquainted with AOR.
Anyway, Steve has always been, and still is, an incredibly active musician. In terms of arranging, composing and producing. On top of FM being constantly present on the scene with new albums (the latest, “Synchronized” (RockLine review) came out just this May), there’s also the Shadowman project. Last year, teaming up with Heartland guitarist Steve Morris, he put out the album “Attitude” (RockLine review) under the Lonerider banner instead of a new Shadowman record. And the year before, in September, he teamed up with Swede Robert Sall (Work Of Art, W.E.T.) for the self-titled Groundbreaker album (RockLine review). It’s simply incredible that with all these obligations Steve Overland still finds enough time to release solo studio albums too. So this July he put out his fifth, and his first new one in four years, since “Contagious” in 2016. “Scandalous”, then! A scandalous music story, released once again under the Escape Records banner.
What’s left for a guy with that many albums under his belt? Drifting a bit away from his tried-and-true, expected style. So. “Scandalous” really is scandalous, in the sense that this time Steve veered off from his predictable loyalty to the AOR genre. The opener Don’t Give Up announces it right away, sitting on a decent funk springboard. Second on the album, Never Say Die, is surprisingly framed as hard rock (the verse), and the distorted nature of the guitars sets up a phenomenal interplay with the vocal multi-harmonies in the chorus, which sound… AOR-ish. Pompous, that is. Something similar returns later in Black Heart, just a little less convincingly. Diamond in the Dust is hard-rock-heavy, backed up even by a beefy Hammond sound, and once again everything works out very nicely for Overland.
Yep. The AOR element is somewhat “controlled” across the album this time, but it stays faithfully present all the same. Overland pays more attention to bringing in other genre elements. Blues too. Lost in the City proves it. In this song the fusion is so successful that you can talk about its art sentiment. Closest Thing to Heaven is an excellent ballad that would sit well on a bigger AOR-flavored album and carries a distant Foreigner sentiment, while the outro is “cheekily carried over” from the intro into the verse phrase of the Whitesnake hit Is This Love). Listening to Changing Times, you get the feeling Overland invited Joe Bonamassa onto the album as a special guest, because Denander’s blues-rock riff is seriously “fat”. It’s a bluesy lament that Overland, in his soulful vocal styling, steers superbly toward the chorus, where overdoing the musicality of the vocal harmonies feels rather counterproductive. The “AOR-blues” combo has never really held water. At moments like these, Tommy Denander’s excellent soloing holds the album up. The Trouble With Love is the real opposite. A disco and funk foundation, phenomenal musical development, and a grabby chorus. Testify is what AOR fans actually want from Steve. The only song like it on the album, that is, a pure-blooded AOR track.
But there’s no reason for grumbling, worry or fear. All this deviating has also produced very good results. Mostly very good. Even in Unchained, which again grips more decisively toward hard rock. The experimenting with musical oddities is a tad too much in the drawn-out “lullaby” God Made An Angel, which opens promisingly bluesy, but that’s all there is to it. The album closes with another strong hard-rock pulse-raiser called Hole In My Heart, which makes sure the record wraps up in an enviable contrast of drama theater. Watch out. The chorus almost escapes into a swing rhythm. But it’s a fun detour at the tail end of the album, and as a composition it stands convincingly in every way.
So is the album as a whole any worse just because it brings stylistic detours from what you’d expect? Not at all. The answer lies in the character of Overland’s voice, which works brilliantly in other genre spheres too. The same goes for his famous countryman Glenn Hughes. Wherever you put him, his voice will work brilliantly. Top-notch. No need to worry. With the new album Steve Overland had to step back a bit from the predictable forms he’s locked into with FM, his other projects and past solo albums. He took some artistic freedom, and “Scandalous” is an album that keeps everything extremely listenable, organically grabby, with a strong rhythmic groove, a few mostly successful escapes from the AOR frame, and of course the realization that Overland’s voice finds its footing phenomenally in absolutely every sphere.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. Don’t Give Up (3:29)
2. Never Say Die (3:46)
3. Lost In The City (3:20)
4. Closest Thing To Heaven (4:50)
5. Black Heart (3:24)
6. Changing Times (5:17)
7. The Trouble With Love (3:54)
8. Diamond In The Dust (4:20)
9. Testify (3:48)
10. Unchained (3:41)
11. God Made An Angel (4:31)
12. Hole In My Heart (4:02)
Lineup:
Steve Overland – vocals, backing vocals
Tommy Denander – guitar, keyboards
Brian Anthony – bass guitar, Hammond organ
Brian Tichy – drums
