These days with technology the way it is recording your debut album with a help of guest musicians isn’t the logistical balancing act it used to be. As a result anyone with the connections and/or the fee can have a guest to the party to make that otherwise easily overlooked record something that is going to make people notice.
Duane Morano is undoubtedly a gifted guitarist but it’s the addition of two of my favourite vocalists – Danny Vaughn (Tyketto) and Terry Ilous (XYZ, Great White) that really make this album standout. In truth this is a more than decent album, it’s one that would have won accolades back in the day if not necessarily hit the very heights of the charts. Like a lot of the albums released these days though that try to recapture some of that late 80’s glory some might feel that the time is both gone and also that the best music of that type is already in the collection. Those people might just be mistaken.
The other side of the coin of course, and the one I favour, is that here is yet another talent hitting all the right notes, and with Ilous and Vaughn on board he can’t go far wrong. The only issue I can see there is that if this does take off then both do have their day jobs and two singers of course cost far more than one. Let’s hope that now Duane has our attention then this might progress into a band rather than a solo project.
Best of a great bunch for me are the sheer 80’s class of opener ‘After the Love’ with Mr Vaughn on vocals (he sings another four tracks here) proving why he’s one of the best voices in Hard Rock out there and the equally catchy but more restrained ‘I Want Love’ with vocals by Terry Ilous (who takes another three vocals).
Great album for those who love their 80’s flavoured rock with the added bonus of some killer guests.
