Andy Rock
Into the Night

A rocker named Andy known as a wild rose, is after his first album with the band Wild Rose testing his wings on his own under his own name. The album is called Into the Night and has a city at night for cover art, that is all good and everything. It all feels very much AOR, which it is described to be. For this album Andy is doing everything but the drumming, for Wild Rose he was only doing like guitars or something so this is a real solo album. So, with an acclaimed debut for Wild Rose maybe we shall expect some big deeds with this first solo effort as well? Lets see how much Andy Rocks.

It is classical AOR we are talking about, melodic rock with distinct hit potential across the line of the eleven tracks and little over 43 minutes that this album plays for. Very keyboard driven is it and it is built around distinct choruses that are meant to stick to you mind like a bug glued to a flypaper. It is flawlessly produced with a very clean sound, not heavy or powerful just clean, polished and catchy. Andy has a decent voice for the genre, not overly good nor overly bad just good enough for what he does. I would describe it as a classical AOR album that follows the rules of the genre very close to the letter.

No denying this is a flawless product, the songs are all good from the first one to the last. None are really spectacular albeit there are several that works well when listening to the album, but then it is quite easy to forget it just as quick. I mean it is a strong album but it is a bit past due for albums like this as they have been released for several decades now and there must be thousands of them nowadays, and the problem for this album is that it has nothing to really set it apart from all of these albums I just mentioned. Sure it is well made, the songs are good and all would be appreciated on the radio but at the same time none of them really catches the attention, none remains with you when not playing the album and there is really nothing that makes you want to play this album when not listening to it.

So if you like AOR this might surely be your thing, I mean it is supermelodic, it has great melodies and catchy songs and there is no apparent flaws in the construction but for me it just does not really reach those heights that the really good AOR albums do. Thing is that these albums may be good and they are enjoyable to listen to but when they don’t really stand out they don’t really last that long and longevity and something making it really memorable is a requirement for the best album and this is not one of those. This is a good album but it is nothing more than that.

So, if you collect AOR or just enjoy AOR in all its form I am quite sure that you will not be disappointed with this album. I have enjoyed listening to it as it has good and catchy songs and it is easy to take to, too bad it isn’t really that memorable, but a good album nonetheless.