| CD REVIEW China Blue |
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Band : China Blue With this band Frontiers have signed themselves yet another all-star band with great potential, as its line-up consists of former Shy (and current TNT) singer Tony Mills, guitarist Josh Ramos (The Storm, Hardline, Hugo/ Ramos), keyboardist Eric Ragno (Takara, Ted poley, Steve Grimmett, Danny Vaughn, American Angel, Hugo/ Ramos, etc…), bassist Doug Odell, and drummer Zane Petersen (Malicious, Conditioned Response). Although this is the band’s debut album, its history goes back to the late Eighties, when Eric started the band as a studio project with his best friend Tom Gasbarro (Eric writing all music, Tom the lyrics). The title of this album, by the way, was already decided on back in those days. As the bio on Frontiers.com mentions, the songs were exploring the avenues of defining moments, decisions which were made in the “Twilight Of Destiny”. Nothing ever reallly came of those demos, as Tom moved on, and Eric’s career gained momentum with bands like Vox Tempus, which moved in slightly different musical avenues…but Eric swore that one day he’d pick up the thread again! In early 2008, Eric played some of the demos to his friend Michael Riesenbeck (a Dutch multi-instrumentalist session player who released his solo album Shouting Silence in 2003, whom was instrumental in getting the 2004 Toto tribute Fanfields released), who encouraged him to take the best stuff from the demos, write new songs, and start to look out for the necessary musicians to record the album. First recruited was Mills, whom certainly added a real special touch to the recordings (his schedule being somewhat tight having joined TNT, the services of one Phil Vincent were hired to write additional lyrics on three songs). When Riesenbeck left the project, Eric’s friend & guitarist Josh Ramos (the two had already collaborated in From the Inside, Los Angles, in Ramos’ own band, in Hugo/ Ramos) immediately stepped in. Petersen, another long-time friend of Eric’s who’s helped him out at several moments in his career, was next. And missing link Doug Odell was found at the 2008 MelodicRock.com festival where the two were part of the Melodic Rock All-Stars band. Of course, with someone like Ragno, you can expect a couple of guest appearances, which come courtesy of rhythm guitarist Ronny Smith, Pete Newdeck (stepped in on the drums when Petersen stepped back to concentrate on his solo project), and bassist Fabrizio Grossi (I ain’t sure which songs he appears on, though). Produced by Eric himself (with executive supervision of manager Ron Vining – who got Eric connected to Frontiers) and mixed/ mastered by JK Northrup, the 12-track album is posted as an “…absolute delight for all fans of classic Shy, Journey and The Storm music with a slightt Progressive edge…”. Personally, I have some mixed feelings about the track-listing! You see, the way the guys got about, the four first songs (“What Do You Need But Love”, “I Feel Like Dying”, “Changing Ways”, and “So Wrong”) see Mills singing at the top of his vocal capacity…and quite frankly that makes for some rather limited vocal range (weird, because Mills wrote all those lyrics, and possibly also the vocal melodies, himself) which begins to bore severely even before the that 4th track begins! Not that any of the songs separatedly bring about that feeling! Nay, in fact they’re all very nice and bombastic tracks, but put them together in a row…and it takes several listening sessions of the whole album for one to become acustomed to those vocally harsher album opening tracks! One way to solve that problem from the start (you hàve beeen warned ahead now!) would be to put your cd-player on random play so the track-list gets shuffled somewhat, because starting that 5th track (“Don’t Be A Stranger”) the singer takes things a bit calmer, which gives a warmer touch to his voice…and also brings forth an increased resemblance to Journey music through the vocals! Towards the end of the album, you’ll also find two instrumental tracks: first the 1:24 intro to “Lost”, then the album closing (and “normal” length) “A Last Goodbye”, both in essence well-succeeded exercises in getting keyboards and solo guitar to work together (in a very beautiful way too, I’ll say!). And at the end of some repeated listening sessions spread over a couple of days, even I fell to liking the album overall, you know! Stronger even, I’ve now become convinced not only of the great writinng skills that lay behind the music, bbut also of the performance of the musicians…including Mills’!!! Besides finding an interview with Ragno (introduced by the closing tunes of the song “Crimes Of Passion”and closed with the opening lines of “So Wrong”), you also get an (edited, which means there’s shards of two songs) interview with Odell, a clip containing a radio ad for the albums of China Blue as well as those of Robert Berry and Ecliptica (check elsewhere for the reviews of these also gréat records), a 12-minute introduction to the tracks on the album, and somewhat longer samples (2-minute) of “So Wrong” and “What Do You Need But Love”. Quite enough to convince the hardest cynic of the quality entailed in the album, indeed! Regrettably, when rating an album I occasionally take in account my initial impressions…and in this case that’s exactly what I’m doin’, even if I indééd like the album a lot by now! What gives the album extra credits, is the beautiful artwork delivered by Wavid (akà David Williams)…known from his work for Journey, Kevin Chalfant, Jimi Jamison, Bonrud, VU, Hope Kills, Heartfield, and a couple of others! 85/100 Tony. |