Artist: Alliance
Label: Escape Music
Release: 2008
Rating: 4/5
Only the third album from a bunch of guys who’ve known each other very, very well for at least two solid decades, and despite a gap of nearly ten years since the previous record, it’s a perfectly logical follow-up to “Missing Link” from 1999. A quartet of heavyweights like Robert Berry (Hush, GTR, 3, solo career, Ambrosia), Gary Pihl (Sammy Hagar, Boston), David Lauser (Sammy Hagar) and Alan Fitzgerald (Montrose, Gamma, Night Ranger) has piled up a nice stack of seriously high-quality material in that time, and every fan of melodic hard rock and AOR should check it out.
The band serves up a typically American product in the lighter hard rock vein. You can tell the guys were buddies with Sammy Hagar for a long time, and the catchiness and melody here definitely include that mild but, for US bands, often typical flirtation with blues and R&B, which drapes over the essence of every track on this album like a delicate veil. Compared to the self-titled debut and its follow-up “Missing Link”, “Road to Heaven” offers noticeably more melody and, so far, the least “Sammy Hagar buddy-buddy” vibe.
Robert Berry has taken a big step forward as a singer, and his melodic, warm voice, pushed to a higher level of melodicism compared to the previous two albums, fits “The Road to Heaven” like a glove. The quartet knows exactly what it wants and exactly what it’s doing in the studio. The guys are in total sync on that front. Production-wise, it’s a fine example of the classic symbiosis between all the integral, clearly and evenly distributed parts of the lineup, with the vocals placed front and center, where partial departures are possible at any moment depending on the mood the song is going for. Because of that, we get a nice measure of dynamic flow and mood shifts throughout the album. The fiery, tightly packed opener Road To Heaven carries a pronounced guitar riff, because the album has to get rolling somehow. The very next track, I Can Breathe, is aimed straight at radio airplay, nudging into softer pop rock waters, but with a big, ear-grabbingly catchy and melodic chorus. Make A Stand is a gorgeous ballad that confirms the guys’ mastery of big melodies, crossed with tightness and a high degree of thematic expressiveness. Anything Goes then floors the gas pedal again, and the album gets another dose of tougher rock bounce, typical even of English AOR bands a la Heartland, Newman, Shadowman, though overall, listening to this album, you can’t shake the feeling of the American legacy of Foreigner, Bad English or Night Ranger.
Just a few of those comparisons are reason enough for every true melodic rock fan to check this album out. It’s easy to get into, extremely catchy, yet also very dynamic, with plenty of variety in themes and moods throughout. Given how busy its members are, usually communicating only by email and swapping mp3 recordings, let’s hope we won’t have to wait almost another decade for the follow-up to “The Road To Heaven”. Alliance are old pros who know exactly how to handle melodic rock and take it to top-notch heights of songwriting and studio polish. An extremely upbeat rock album, perfect for releasing the tension and friction we’re exposed to every day.
Line-up
Robert Berry – vocals, bass guitar
Alan Fitzgerald – keyboards
Gary Pihl – guitar
David Lauser – drums
Production
Alliance
Tracklist
1. Road To Heaven
2. I Can Breathe
3. Make A Stand
4. Anything Goes
5. Like Me Like That
6. Broken Glass
7. We Don’t Talk
8. Comin’ Home
9. Nothing Else I Can Do
10. Walkin’ Away
11. Remember Those Days
12. Not Done Till It’s Done
13. Much More Innocent
Running time: 52.32
