Band : Alyson Avenue
Album title : Changes
Label : Avenue Of Allies
Distributor : Connecting Music - Bertus
Release date : 10/06/2011
Release : CD

Since the release of their first album Presence Of Mind, I’ve more or less been following the career of Alyson Avenue, not only because they’ve consistently been making good AOR music, but also because they had a very good female vocalist Anette Olzen, who replaced Tarja Turunen in Nightwish in 2007.  Gone is Anette, and she’s replaced by the, to my liking every bit as good sounding Arabella Vitanc.

Besides having a good vocalist, these guys also now how to write a nice tune.  I’d even risk to say that this is the best album Alyson Avenue have released so far.  Maybe it’s also the production that helped the sound a lot, after all the band co-produced all songs on the album with Chris Laney (H.E.A.T., Brian Robertson, Crazy Lixx), and also could rely on a lot of helping hands, like Michael Bormann for instance, who together with Arabella make "Will I Make Love" one of the best songs on this album.  Previous Alyson Avenue vocalist Anette Olzon also makes a few appearances doing backing vocals on this album. I think the music is this album is a bit heavier then what we were used to from this band, but not that heavy that it’s not AOR anymore.  And while some critics might argue that Arabella’s voice is rather nasal, that would be a meager excuse to burn this record down.  I like it, except maybe one track "Don’t Know If Love Is Alive", but the other tracks are very good.

I’m eagerly looking forward to the future for this band.

90/100

Erik Morren.