Sapphire Eyes
s/t

The first thing that came to mind when I was getting this album was: “damn, that is one ugly album cover” but fortunately for Sapphire Eyes I have learnt that you could never judge a book by its cover. Behind that sapphire eyed character are the duo Niclas Olsson known for his keyboarding in his regular band Alyson Avenue, and singer Thomas Bursell who had worked with Niclas earlier. The band was formed because Niclas wanted to do something with a male vocalist rather than a female one as in Alyson Avenue, and this due to him having so much material not really suited for the musical style of Alyson Avenue. And besides this duo there are lots of guest musicians helping out, amongst others the two singers that has been singing for Niclas main band Alyson Avenue where one of course is Anette Olzon who might be known for singing with famous band Nightwish. But enough introductions and rubbish now, lets cut to the chase you say and so I do.

It is AOR, plain and simple. Very melodic rock music with catchy choruses, very keyboard driven and with many different vocalists which creates a good variation over the tracks on the album and on one of the tracks there is a female lead vocalist in Anette Olzon but there are some different vocalists and musicians setting their touch on the overall result. The production is as it often is in these cases, it is quite brilliant is what I was supposed to write but got lost in translation. I think it is a strong production with no real flaws in that part of the scheme but maybe some could complain about them not really adding anything to the table of AOR.

In this case however, I don’t care that they aren’t fresh and exciting because in their quite typical AOR-styling they still are. Their music is great, it is exciting and the songs are all excellent starting from the best song on the album Your My Wings all the way to the end with songs just slightly below that wonderful opener and all in all I cannot really find anything other than the really dreadful album cover to complain about when it comes to this album and that means that we have another brilliant album from this label; their latest trio in which this is a part was certainly one to be proud of and Sapphire Eyes can be proud of their work as well.

In end I can say that although these guys offers nothing really new to the genre but they do what they do so well so it is impossible to dismiss them for that and anyone who likes rock music will like this album. Therefore a recommendation is well in place, buy Sapphire eyes, you will not regret it.

HHHHHHH