Prayer
Danger in the Dark

The name Prayer gives me cold chills in the spine the moment I see it. I really don't like music merged with religion, regardless of religion and standpoint, because every time music is compromised by a message you ruin the whole point of music - which is an interaction between vocals and instruments creating melodies, rhythms and emotions. To put messages in the music often removes the soul of the music, which the religious fanatics have shown more often than not with their music. Thankfully though, Prayer is not fanatically religious.

Why they've chosen to call themselves Prayer is not really answered anywhere, but those who has prayed for a nice mix between power metal and AOR in the shape of melodic rock has had their prayers heard. This Finnish quintet has more keyboards than the Christian psalms and their guitars gives us a holy preching. The tempo is often related to the AOR while the song structure reminds me more of power metal. It's not as heavy as power metal, though, but closer to AOR or even glam rock. Sometimes the music even reminds me of Van Halen with all those keyboards "jumping" around in the music like it was 1984 again, but overall they are closer to the leads of bands like Journey than the hair rock scene.

Hadn't I known better I would have guessed it was power metal icon Kain Hansen who did the vocals because Tapani Tikkanens voice really sounds as round and almost rambling as the German genius all though he doesn't sing things like "Heevi metal youneeworse" but more things like "theyjner inn the daark" and "nobuddy luuves yu" - with a tone almost cloned from the German. The quality of the album feels stabile and high but without peaks and hits. There's no real hit-feeling on the album or anything that makes it timeless and particularly interesting. I can't see this album work everywhere or at any occasion because it's not glittering like gold anywhere, not in the production, no single instrument or the vocals and not any particular song.

So what do we actually get from prayer? Well, we get a stabile and good album that reminds mostly about the popular rock music of the late 70's and 80's. They remind me a lot of their countrymen Human Temple, AOR that just can't helping having a few toes, or sometimes even a whole foot, in power metal but the real interesting parts are constantly missing, making it an album that just isn't lighting up above the average. It never gets bad but neither is it getting really good. A steady average, in other words.

HHHHHHH