X-Romance
Voices From the Past

Voices From the Past is an apt title for an album of songs that was originally recorded for the band Romance where Andres Rönnblom and Thomas Widmark were members. Anders found these recording from 1988 in a box of tapes and figured they were too good to just leave in a box so he contacted Thomas. Together with musicians from the Stockholm area they rerecorded the songs and all of a sudden we have this album of voices from the past in a newer guise.

AOR is one way to describe the album, melodic rock another. Catchy and melodic with pretty good production, but I think is rather clear that it is songs from the past and not modern songs. Overall the performances and sound are good, more could be desired when it comes to the variation but with short playing time it becomes less of an issue. There are no surprises and an album that is quite easy to take to and feels familiar enough so that it should be fairly easy to like.

This album is pretty good but has two niggles that I don’t really like, too much nostalgia and the songs are often too slow. They seems to be building up to something but eventually we end up with a disappoint chorus and something of an anti-climax. Sure it is solid enough to play and probably enjoy for a while but it will not make a lasting impression and there has been plenty of AOR albums this year that has been way better than this one.

Nostalgic people will probably like this album, perhaps some other as well but I don’t think it will make much of an impact. There are just so many more interesting AOR albums out there to chose from so I doubt that this one will be a favourite amongst the masses. The conclusion is that this album is pretty good but nothing that really stands out, perhaps the songs should have been reworked before recording, otherwise it would have been better for them to remain in that box.

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