Altzi: All Eyes On Me

Swedish Melodic Rock, these three words are something that someone like myself seem to have been typing a lot of over these past few years, such is the amount of Melodic Rock coming out of said country. The problem with that is with so much coming out its easy for a quality release to get lost in this (now) somewhat overcrowded scene, so is this one of them?

Well, Rick Altzi has been around on the scene for some time now, so it’s fair to say he knows his way around having worked with the likes of Helloween, Accept, King Diamond and Pain Of Salvation. So, the not so easy answer to my earlier question is well...yes AND no. There are times that this album really flourishes, with the opening song `Point Of No Return` and the preceding effort `Crash And Fall` both of which are full of energy with a real spark to them. `Into The Fire` comes and goes without really leaving any sort of aftertaste, whereas `Run To You` gets the album firmly back on track with a gritty vocal performance sang over a pulsating piece of modern AOR, and the same can be said for `Legacy` too.

We then come to the first `slower` number...I was wondering when it would manifest itself, and in truth` You Don’t Believe In Love` is a rather damp squib really. It chugs along fairly nicely but again leaving me rather nonplussed. `Strangers In The Real World`, once again starts off with a fair slice of vim and vigour before outstaying its welcome rather.

`Desire` with its cool blend of keys and guitars fares a lot better, with a genuinely memorable chorus to it, and `Hurting Kind ` also works really well too. From here on in, I found that the songs really did start to blend into one, and the likes of `Motherless Child`, `Tossin` And Turnin`, and `Final Warning`, are, it can be argued a little too derivative of the genre to really stand out. It’s therefore really left up to `Wind And The Rain` and `Where Dreams Never Die` to save the album from petering out, the former a mid paced rocker with a fine guitar motif to it and the latter (the album closer) being a power ballad of the highest order.

An unqualified success?, It’s difficult to gauge really as there`s certainly enough here to please any hardened melodic rocker, but I just felt that there was some material lacked enough diversity for me personally, but that’s not to undermine the effort put in here as the playing and production of this album all hint at a really well put together record.

Track Listing
1. Point Of No Return
2. Crash and Fall
3. Into The Fire
4. Run to you
5. Legacy
6. You Don’t Believe In Love
7. Strangers in the Real World
8. Desire
9. Hurting Kind
10. Motherless Child
11. Wind & the Rain
12. Tossin’ and Turnin’
13. Final Warning
14. Where Dreams Never Die

Added: April 7th 2022
Reviewer: Malcolm Smith
Score:
Related Link: Band Website
Hits: 452
Language: english

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