Band : M.ILL.ION

Album title : Thrill Of The Chase

Label : Metal Heaven

Distributor : Rough Trade

Release date : 23/05/2008

Release : CD

Formed in 1989 by bassist/ songwriter B.J. Laneby, Gothenborg based Swedish Classic Rock act M.ill.ion rose to instant stardom when their 1992 debut album N° 1 shot to #30 in the Japanese charts. Even though the world was at the brink of the surgeance of the whole Grunge thing, the success grew worldwide in a deminished capacity, earning the band the title of "Sweden's finest" and "N°. 1 in Hard Rock". Of course, Europe itself (just to be difficult) didn't quite follow suit!

Sophomore album We, Ourselves & Us (released 1994/5) didn't exactly change anything about the European situation, even if the album had a more modern sound than its predecessor...which may have had something to do with Grunge, after completely overthrowing the market situation in the US, had come a-knocking to conquer Europe as well. Third album Electric was released in 1998, but in spite of worldwide press going wild over the record (seeing business people and journalists from Japan, Germany, Italy and elsewhere travelling to Sweden to see the band's release show. To push the album and band on the European continent, a big tour was planned. But then the label suffered serious financial problems, and the tour had to be cancelled. Soon after, the label went belly-up, and a tough time for the band followed.

It resulted in a shift in the line-up, and in 1999 new singer Ulrich Carlsson and young guitar wiz Jonas Hermansson were recruited up front a Holland tour. One year later a best of compilation of the first 3 albums was released under the title Get Millionized, and in 2001 new album Detonator followed on the band's new label Majestic Rock. Late 2002 saw the last line-up change to date, when current Hammond organ and keyboards player Johan Bergquist (Hammerfall)entered the fold (which, by the way, is completed by drummer Per Westergren). Before 2004's Kingsize hit the record stores, an EP simply entitled 2004 was issued, containing 3 new songs and 2 acoustic versions of older songs. Kingsize was the last new album under obligation to their former label, who still released a new compilation titled M.ILL.ION 1991-2006 The Best, So Far (including an unreleased track and a couple of videos), in mid 2006, and saw to it that the band went on several promotional excusions, including a trip to Japan.

After that, the band took some time off, locking themselves away in the rehearsal room for the most part of a year to write the songs that were to collectively make up the Thrill Of The Chase album. Having signed a deal with German label Metal Heaven in September 2007, the band disappeared into the Bohus Studio (known from having served none less than Abba and Status Quo in the past) from November '07 to January 2008. With mixing done in February, the band is now ready to throw itself on the Classic Rock loving crowds.

Confession time: in spite of the fact that this IS M.ill.ion's 6 th full-length album, and although Classic Rock indeed falls into the real of musical genres I'm fond of...I have to admit the band had never before come to my attention! Thanx to Metal Heaven, that at least is something which has been remedied! And very much to my pleasure, I have to say. As mentioned before, M.ill.ion playes a Classic Rock with a modern sound. This mean that the Hammond organ sound is very prominent indeed. The modern touches come from the sparkling guitar sound, and the somewhat high-pitched vocal stylings of the lead singer. Check out a couple of tracks off the new album (samples really, full-lengths possibly going on-line once the album has hit the streets for a while) and two songs off previous material at myspace.com/millionized. In their promo talk, the label mentions guest appearances by Lanvall of Edenbridge, and Tommy Denander of Radioactive, but they forgot to mention on which song, and in what capacity, but in reality that doesn't change much to the end result.

82/100

Tony.