| CD REVIEW Sarasin A.D. |
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Band : Sarasin A.D. This Huntington (Ontario, Canada) based Hard Rock act is somewhat of a weird bird in the scene! Apparently they've been active since 1983 (playing their debut show on April 13 of that year), formed by remaining bassist Rob Grant and guitarist Greg Boileau. Since then, some 27 different people have had a tenureship in the band's line-up, but they claim themselves that the current stability with singer Philip Naro, guitarist/ backing singer John Rogers, and drums Roger Banks is the best incarnation the band ever had. As I said: somewhat of a weird bird in the Hard Rock scene, as you be hard up finding some info on the band's activities...almost like the media united to keep Sarasin (as they're known in North America) a well-hidden secret. In spite of this, the band played some 250 shows per year in the period between 1984 and 1990, touring Canada and the US from coast to coast, and the band gained a cult popularity with their early albums in European places like Italy, France, Germany...and Belgium! Well, as I said, a shroud of secrecy surrounds the whole period between the band's beginning days and today...and in spite of the fact that the singer has provided his songwriting abillities for Heavy Rock heroes such as Lee Aaron, Coney Hatch, Peter Criss, Liberty 'N' Justice, and Kim Mitchell to name but a few, and that selected musicians of the band have collaborated with the likes of Brighton Rock, 24K, Tom Lord Alge, Jim Gilmour, Lou Gramm, and Tony Levin, the only info I found on their releases includes the 1987 EP Lay Down Your Guns, and last year's album The Last Word. The current album is actually a revised version of that same 2007 album, with 4 songs added to the original 9. In the few info sources I found, there seems to be a consensus about the description of the band's music as a "...perfect synthesis of Black Sabbath's musicality and the mammoth power chord roar of Led Zeppelin, fused with the playful party sensibility of AC/DC...", a description which I've found to be quite analogous to the Heavy Rock I've heard played on this album! Not surprisingly, remeniscences to Zep, Judas Priest, and even Iron Maiden have been mentioned by music journalists brave enough to lift theveil of secrecy around this Canadian act. If you're wondering what they sound like, all you need to do is surf to myspace.com/sarasinmusic to find no less than 5 songs (and a video for "In America") off the album, and in the “Sound 'n' samples section of the band's own sarasin.ca website, you can even listen to samples(? I ain't sure, 'cuz I didn't check, so it could be full-length pieces too) of àll this album's tracks. What with a growing number of people seem to be looking back in nostalgy to the days when the no-frills straight-forward kinda Rock was part of mainstream music, and other bands in the genre signing deals with major companies again, there's a good chance Sarasin AD may yet be gaining more and more in popularity, and finally see the clouding mists that surrounded them all those years dissipate in the sun (hum, what with climatic conditions these days, one can always hope, can't one?). 85/100 Tony. |