Farraday: Shade Of Love

I'll happily and willingly put my hand up to admit my love of all things melodic rock, not caring a jot that most people would consider a lot of the current releases from labels such as Frontiers, Escape or in the case of Farraday and their Shade Of Love debut AOR Heaven, to be dated, old hat and clichéd. So with this effort from Greek pair Roy Da Vis and Stathis Spiliotopoulos (who first released an EP under the moniker Bad Medicine) simply bursting with keyboard hooks, smooth as silk choruses and the odd smack of bristling guitars, all should be right with the world. However as can often happen, even the perfect set of ingredients can be whisked together to make bland, unappetising fare and so it is here. Shade Of Love isn't awful, it's just a bit plodding, by numbers and, well, boring. Something a bass heavy production and poorly balanced drum mix certainly doesn't help. Da Vis pulls out his best White Lion era Mike Tramp vocal tricks, while his guitar work is sharp and keyboard contributions clever, but even in a genre that has gleefully been rehashing old ideas for a long time now, the likes of "Breakin' Down" feels tired while "Can't Wait On Love" is the sort of stuff that saw melodic rock become ripe for the grunge pickings. Now that's harsh, but there's just nothing on Shade Of Love, from its insipid title, through to its clumsy production (courtesy of Spiliotopoulos) and safe song writing that marks it out as anything other than also ran fare. In fact even album highlights "One Way Ticket To Hollywood" and the album's title cut struggle to make an impression, instead having you dashing for your best Whitesnake, Def Leppard, White Lion, Giant or Journey albums to remind yourself how it should be done.

A rare missed step from AOR Heaven, Farraday may have all of the right elements to make a tasty dish, but some outside expert help will be needed to make album number two worthy of sampling.

Track Listing
01. One Way Ticket To Hollywood
02. Rock U (The Old Fashion Way)
03. Shade Of Love
04. Can't Get Enough
05. Breakin' Down
06. Tonight
07. Can't Wait On Love
08. Out Of Nowhere
09. There For You
10. When Passion Burns

Added: August 16th 2013
Reviewer: Steven Reid
Score:
Related Link: Farraday on facebook
Hits: 1979
Language: english

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