I've had the Valentine CD a few days now. All I can say is wow, what a great cd. It doesn't have quite as hard of an edge as the S/T release, but what it lacks in edge, it makes up on smoothness. The cd flows well from song to song hitting the AOR requirement out of the park. Hugo's voice sounds awesome on the CD as well. All of the guys have writing credit for the record which says they're all working together on the record. +1 to Valentine.
All I can say is this record does not disappoint. The best songs from the record are:
1. Dream on the Way - a good rocker with a good message
2. Soul Salvation - An uplifting, smooth rock song
3. Love Song - A great ballad, the name says it all
4. One More Chance - An upbeat rocker trying to regain the one you lost ... that wasn't your choice to loose
5. Page - All I can for this one holy shit! A mid temp ballad about fixing what is about to be broken. This is the best song on the cd. What can be better than Hugo's vocals? Layered Hugo vocals. Those harmonies will give you goose bumps while Hollands guitar work fits seamlessly with the harmonies. WOW
6. Wait - This song has the closest thing to the Holland signature guitar sound I was looking for on the entire cd. I do not like remakes of any songs, period. However, this song is not recognizable to the original. It sounds great in an updated form. I didn't feel like I got ripped off with this song and that's saying a lot. Another gem.
This cd is worth a listen. In my opinion, it's better than Revelation as is hits the AOR mark well without feeling contrived. Not the rocker, ballad, rocker, rocker, ballad, ballad, rocker .... recipe that Journey kicks out.
As a side note, I was surprised to see that when I purchased the cd on Ebay from ash1965 that is was directly from Adam Holland so I know the band got the money!
http://www.valentinetheband.com/
http://www.myspace.com/valentineofficialband
The myspace link play has four songs from the cd available in full length for review.
L8r,
Aaron
Taking life a quarter mile at a time .... [img]