Band: Sunstorm
Album title: House Of Dreams
Label: Frontiers
Distributor: Rough Trade Benelux
Release date: 17/04/2009
Release: CD

Sunstorm’s self-titled debut (review by yours truly posted 19/09/2006, one day before the release) turned out to be one of the most successful straight-ahead Melodic Rock releases of 2006. Not surprising, when you know the main character behind it was Joe Lynn Turner (former frontman of Fandango, Rainbow, Yngwie Malmsteen, and Deep Purple), whom had taken a set of songs, originally intended for his second solo album (a follow-up to 1985’s Rescue You) off the shelf at the request of Frontiers Records’ main owner Serafino Perugino. Additional tracks were provided by Jim Peterik (ex-Survivor), and a band was made up of German musicians including Dennis Ward (bassist, backing vocals, and producer), Uwe Reitenauer (guitars), Jochen Weyer (keyboards), and Chris Schmidt (drums).
Since then, JLT hasn’t exactly been idle, since he’s not only released two new solo albums (2007’s Second Hand Life, review posted 09/04…and October 2008’s Live In Germany, which we never received for review), and made particiipations to Icarus Witch’s 2007 album Songs For The Lost (review by yours truly again) and the 2008 Metal Christmas compilation. During 2007, he joined up with that other erstwhile Rainbow singer, Graham Bonnet for a sold-out tour of Japan, then also did a command performance for the Prime Minister Of Russia’s cabinet, and did a tour of the USA with the occasional Classic Rock Cares outfit (which also included The John Entwhistle Band and Cliff Williams & Brian Johnson of AC/DC). In early 2008, JLT performed several gigs with his Big Noize supergroup project [a band including guitarist Carlos Cavazo (of Quiet Riot repute), bassist Phil Soussan (Ozzy Osbourne, Billy Idol), and drummer Vinnie Appice (Dio, Black Sabbath) in the US, and in the Fall they travelled to Iraq and Kuweit to entertain the multi-national troops there. On top, he joined up with former Rainbow musicians Tony Carey (keyboards), Greg Smith (bass), Bobby Rondinelli (drums) and guitarist Jurgen Blackmore (son of…) in October 2008 to form Over The Rainbow…and then did a hugely successful tour (playing theaters and arenas in front of audiences between 2500 and 7000 people) with the band through Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine in early 2009. Has he been busy, or what?! When time came to start up a new Sunstorm production (which was actually before the Over The Rainboow thing, if you wanna keep a clear chronological line), JLT again delved into his archives, and evidently chose for Ward to be part of the project again. Ward again enlisted Reitenauer and Chris Schmidt, adding also guitarist Thorsten Koehne…and picked Gunter Werno to perform keyboard duties this time around!
From JLT’s vaults come the tracks “I Found Love” (a regular opener for his shows on the Rescue You Tour), plus “Forever Now” and “Save A Place In Your Heart” (the latter has Paul Sabu as co-writer). In addition, Perugino asked JLT to record “his” version of the Jimmy Barnes ballad “Walk On” (appeared on the 1987 album Freight Train Heart, and was co-written by JLT and the legendary Desmond Child). Outsider songwriters were asked to fill in the gaps. One of ‘em being Jim Peterik again (contributing the tracks “Say You Will” and “Gutters Of Gold”), the other songs (except the Russ Ballard/ Jon Lind written “Tears On The Pages”) delivered by songwriting brothers Tom and James Martin (of House Of Lords and Khymera repute).
You can find samples of four tracks in the multimedia section of the label’s website (www.) frontiers.it, and if you want further (also full-length) audio by JLT, all you have to do is surf to JLT’s MySpace page (myspabe.com/joelynnturner). Sounds corny, but anything touched by JLT is by definition of high quality! He’s simply that kind of singer whom won’t do with second-best material! With the additional tensions between the two guitarists on thís album, you get to hear some truly nice duels between those two. Well, duels is putting it wrongly, because in fact the two work together like a charm! But overall it makes for a very powerful AOR/ Melodic Rock album, deservant of an even higher score that Sunstorm’s debut (not quite year-list material yet, but that because I’ve had to go through the album a bit too fast – I’m sure the fan with more time will indééd put House Of Dreams in his or her year-lists)!

95/100

Tony.