Album title: Get Over it
Artist: Hartmann
Genre: AOR/Melodic Rock
Nationality: German
Familiarity (artist): Zero
Familiarity (genre): 10 (Once I explain once my level of familiarity with a genre I will, rather than keep repeating myself or referring you back to the first time, indicate by a simple score of 1 - 10)
A word before I jump in: For some reason I had not expected this to be AOR or anything like it, so hopefully this will be a win for me. I don’t know this band though, so who knows what way it may go? I’m reasonably confident though.
Tracks
“Remedy”
A rocking start, though the production sounds to me a little weak. Like the vocals seem to be off in the mix. Good song though, at least in the sample.
Rating: 8
“One Step Behind”
Yeah there it is again. The vocal just isn’t quite right. Maybe he’s just not a good singer. His voice doesn’t seem strong enough at times. Hmm.
Rating: 7
“In Another Life”
This could be the first ballad, certainly starts out low-key enough, and for once his vocal is good on this one. Was that pedal steel? Maybe. First song that has really impressed me so far.
Rating: 9
“What You Give is What You Get”
Immortalised by The Jam in the song “Start”, it’s another guitar-led hard rocker, on which the vocalist sort of reminds me of Jorn Lande maybe. I have to say I’m not terribly impressed at this point. It’s pretty generic.
Rating: 7
“The Movie’s End”
Get a sort of western movie feel from this, with a sharp guitar and kind of echoing atmosphere. The vocal is back annoying me though.
Rating: 6
“Just Drive”
The Knopfler-style guitar intro is nice here, and the song sounds like it might develop into something decent.
Rating: 8
“The Gun”
A good striding rocker which has a lot of swagger about it.
Rating: 8
“Can’t Keep Away From You”
Acoustic ballad, which to be fair really highlights the better aspects of his voice. I wonder if it is after all the production? With nothing to mix here other than the guitar and some percussion he sounds much better. Like this one a lot.
Rating: 9
“Get Over it”
The snarling guitar start to this is good, kind of an ominous feel to it, though they’re kind of ripping BOC off there with the main riff.
Rating: 8
“Stay True to Me”
Another acoustic ballad with some nice synthy strings and an interesting line in percussion. I like this one.
Rating: 8
“When We Were the Young”
This is acoustic too, though almost more in a cowboy style, and I think it could shape up to be a fairly decent closer.
Rating: 8
Average Track Rating: 7.8
Comments: I won’t be so cruel as to say the AOR mentioned here stands for Absolutely Ordinary Rock - in fact, I doubt I’d call this AOR. It’s just kind of standard rock, maybe even pop/rock? Meh, that’s going a little far. Hard rock? Possibly. But whatever genre it belongs in, there are far better examples out there, and I doubt I’ll be adding this to my collection any time soon.
Album Rating: 6B
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhPm8asIIMM