Alrighty then, the single tracks have been fun but it's time to knuckle down and tackle the first of our themed albums. So here it is.
Title: Level Eleven
Format: Album
Written by: Mikael Erlandsson, Jamie Borger, Jeff Scott Soto
Performed by: Last Autumn's Dream
Genre: AOR/Melodic Rock
Year: 2011
Acclaim: Unsure
Man are these guys hard to track down! Can hardly find any information till I get to a page called Metal Temple and there I find that the band are a crossbreed of members of Europe and Fair Warning, and are Swedish. This is their (anyone?) eleventh album in a career so far spanning twelve years. Billed as “Melodic rock”, I'm kind of expecting a hybrid of AOR and the odd bit of hard rock, maybe even a little metal mixed in, who knows? But big choruses, keyboard solos and catchy melodies, as I think our friend Anteater once said, should be the order of the day.
And off we go, with a big grindy guitar that quickly gives way to peppy keyboard as “Kiss me” opens the album and sounds totally familiar; where have I heard that before? That melody is very definitely ripped off from somewhere. Even the way the vocal goes up is copied from another song. God, talk about unoriginal. A great song, but it's pretty much not theirs, so I can't award them any kudos. Jesus! It's “Paranoid”! They're fu
cking using the melody from Sabbath's classic! How disrespectful. The bridge is from another song, but I can't place it. Man, this has not set me off on a good footing with these guys. Dear oh dear, I hope the rest is a bit more original. Next up is “Follow your heart”, which at least sounds a little more like one of their own songs, though there are some very obvious AOR cliches and tropes in it, including the “Woah-oh-oh” so favoured by Bon Jovi among others. Kind of a little hard to take seriously so far.
“Fight the world” begins, rather oddly, with a soft piano and then orchestral Beatlesesque violin with a rather nice vocal. Not what I expected from a song so titled to be honest. A power ballad? I guess so. Pretty good to be fair. Some expressive guitar adds to the sense of drama, and Mikael Erlandsson can certainly sing. This is a bit more like what I'vc come to expect of my Swedish AOR bands. The country that gave us Work of Art, Houston and yes, Europe, it's become one of the meccas for melodic rock and AOR, and any band coming out of there has to satisfy a certain pedigree as far as I'm concerned. Care of Night were the last ones I experienced, and they were certainly quite brilliant. This is showing definite purpose, as long as they can keep it up. Perhaps it wasn't the best idea in the world to title one of their songs after one of the bigger hits of Bon Jovi, but far from being a slushy ballad, “I'll B there 4 U” (yeah, that's how they spell it)
has a sort of mixture of seventies rock and Beach Boys charm, and works very well. It's certainly catchy and you could see it being released as a single. Was it? I don't know: I told you, information is very very sketchy on these guys. But it should be. Title might cause some problems though of course, as might the length, five and a half minutes.
A lot of power, energy and drama in “Losing you”, which keeps the tempo high and features some really nice piano. Another powerhouse performance for Erlandsson, with Peter Söderström proving himself a really capable guitarist, but I'd like more information because either someone is playing a violin, there's an orchestra or at least string section, or the keyboards of, it looks like, Erlandsson himself, are pretty damn good. I must say though, “Losing you” gets a little tired around the last minute or so when it basically just repeats the same phrase, I suppose it's the chorus but it just seems like they ran out of ideas. “Go go go get ready for the show” (can you think of a worse title for a song?) is another powerful rocker, showcasing again the talents of Söderström. “Delirious” is a good rock tune but kind of not much more than that, pretty generic. It had been going so well.
Well, maybe we're getting back on track with “Made of stone”. Sounds like another ballad, though I feel it could take off at any moment. No actually, it stays a ballad all the way through though there is some real power and passion in it. “Stick around” has some good moments but it's a little too cheesy even for AOR and it kind of seems like it's being done on autopilot. “Star” sounds a little like a rip-off of some famous song too. It's a pity these guys can't be more original, as they seem to have a lot of talent but keep falling back on established melodies to form the basis of some of their songs. It doesn't do them any credit. We end on the rather annoyingly-titled “Plz” (what is it with the text speak here? Damn you, Prince, for starting this trend in music!) which belies the laziness of its title and allows the boys to come up with a showstopping ballad to close on. Snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, just. Great recovery.
TRACKLISTING AND RATINGS
1. Kiss me
2. Follow your heart
3. Fight the world
4. I'll B there 4 U
5. Losing you
6. Go go go get ready for the show
7. Delirious
8. Stick around
9. Star
10. Plz
Overall I'd have to say this is a very competent AOR album, but it could stand to make some serious improvements, like getting more original melodies and perhaps looking at the process of titling songs. Who knows? Maybe that's their thing. But they're certainly a very decent band and you can see how the merging of elements of Europe and Fair Warning works really well. It's the first album I've heard from them so maybe I'm judging them too harshly, but then again it's their eleventh so by now they should really have this down to a fine art.
Final Rating: 