Hardline
Danger Zone

On the hard line we find a Danger Zone which is the fourth album by this band who seems to be escalating their pace of releasing albums in the same way that the temperature rise keeps escalating thanks to global warming. It was just a few years now and the next album will be releases as soon as december 2013 if the signs are correct. A lot has happened during the years for this band which was formed with Journey’s Neil Schon back in 1991 and the first album featuring the same Schon saw the light of day in 1992. Now a few years later only the singer Johnny remains from that album and the other four in the quintet are new since 2011, so in a way we have a completely new band which according to Frontiers have made their best album since the debut Danger Zone. You won’t get any argument from me there as I have only heard the debut before this album.

There was talk of this band being born because of Neil Schon’s desire to make something heavier than his original bands Journey or Bad English and that seems to be the case still as it is AOR with a little more of an edge than usual. The songs are catchy with memorable choruses and quite genre typical melodies. Overall I would say that it is a rather typical album for the genre, the variation is decent and kept within the theme and need I say that the production is polished and spotless? guess not. Much of this album is quite typical for the genre and the playing time is also rather typical for a CD with near to one hour in twelve tracks.

Seeing this album as a whole it is a rather typical melodic rock album, not overly impressive with many tracks not really doing much at all. However, it starts in bang with a trio of great tracks and it ends brilliantly in The Only One. In between those however there is a vast ocean, or desert, of complete and utter insignificance, eight tracks that doesn’t do anything whatsoever to me. I am however impressed with the great tracks which I really enjoy listening to but four great tracks out of twelve hardly makes a great album, does it? It is a bit of an enigma as to why this album is so tiring to listen to in the middle, I don’t think that the songs are that bad or boring in reality but they are rather typical for the genre and maybe that alone makes it boring. Or maybe it is because of the good tracks that starts the album it seems that way, well the album feels a bit like enjoyment - boredom - come - awakening, almost like work if you remove enjoyment from the start, awakening when you leave work.

So, in the end I would describe this as a fairly insignificant but rather good album, albeit with some brilliant tracks to make it a bit more interesting than your everyday AOR album from Frontiers. So if you liked the previous works from Hardline and adore everything AOR I guess you will find much enjoyment in this album but otherwise there are just a few brilliant tracks amongst a complete set of insignificance, in other words a decent AOR album.