In the endless stream of Melodic Rock bands squeezed out by Frontiers you sometimes wonder what the business plan is? I mean some like me love this time of music but it doesn’t get to a point when you crave something that sounds like it’s not punched from the exact same template as the last ten bands you listened to. That’s whey when we started this website almost 15 years ago the ethos was to only tell people about that music that we thought was worth mentioning, after all what’s the point in reviewing the mundane? I’m not at all interested in picking out the stinkers to throw to the wolves.
Saying that there are an awful lot of bands that have a sound akin to Big City who hail from Norway. The point is that these guys have the songs to stand out. Four albums in you feel that part of that falls down to the fact that the band has stayed solid for the last five years.
There’s a metal edge to the melody at times and in vocalist Jorgen Bergersen who also plays in a Europe cover band you know you’ve got the real deal.
With a nice melodic opener in ‘I’m Somebody’ we drift a little heavier with ‘Sons of Desire’ but to be honest the song that says these guys have it is the magic third track ‘Human Mind’ which has to be one of my songs of the year – everything just comes together beautifully.
You don’t have to look far for more crackers either. The oddly titled ‘ Collin’s Looking For a Hideout’ is very cool and different enough to really add something. Best of all might even be the hard hitting ‘Sunwind Sails’ or the very cool guitar-fired ‘After the Raid’ (that intro had me thinking of Ozzy from the off!) that even has a touch of Prog in its DNA. So whilst it might play it rater straight with songs like ‘Now’ there’s more than enough edge and energy, not to mention some wonderful twin guitar moments to make this one stand out.
7 / 10