There are only two types of music. Good and bad.
But the only music that really touches me there is
AOR.
And I don't mean any old
AOR, just the good stuff. Pure, undiluted, hardcore. The stuff you can mainline and stay high on all day.
There are bands who've adulterated the mix, cutting it with a contemporary spin. And it works. There are bands who simply parody the past (yawn).
Then there are bands whose sound seems freshly freed from suspension in aspic.
Thus I waxed ecstatic over Eye's mini album
'2 Hearts' . . . best
AOR I've heard for, well, er, since
HEAT and Brother Firetribe.
And now . . . Nine T Nine.
What this band have achieved here, without the benefit of a premier league production budget is indeed impressive.
Many of these songs, opulent, intimate
AOR, built on urgent guitar riffs, haunted croons and precise keyboard parts are deceptively simple.
Opener,
'Caught In A Trap' expresses a familiar
AOR sentiment, but what a song. It's cleverly shrouded in melodramatic musical colours with climactic piano keys further setting the tone of the song. But it's pacy, light on its feet, pulse quickening.
From there, the other 12 tracks, sleek and clean, are full of effervescent verses that bubble up to frothy, tasty hooks, punctuated by a couple of big, swooning ballads,
'Bus Stop' and
'Shoreline'.
'The Way You Touched Me',
'Light My Life' and
'Sandy' are constructed around majestic keyboard riffs and arresting hooks, with guitars rationed to (very effective) fills, frills and trills. Good songs. But contender for album standout is
'Faith'. A real head turner, it's charged with an electric and electrifying sense of drama, powered by driving rhythms.
Elsewhere, there's an air of familiarity - and a few déjà vu moments - to many tracks, but that's just the nature of the beast. Because, yes, we have been here before.
Written by
Brian Monday, November 2, 2009
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