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Guitars, Keyboards: Frederic Slama,
Tommy Denander, Peter Hume |
Guitars: Steve Lukather, Michael
Landau, Peter Friestedt, Michael Thompson, |
| The
Review |
With a name like AOR, I was expecting full blown pop laden
rock material, hence melodic rock or "AOR." Instead, what
I hear is a return to 80's rock relevant pop, you know, the
from back in the day when the band's actually played real
instruments and rock and roll had a stake in pop music's sound.
Anyways, producer/musician Frederic Slama literally nailed
this sound and 'L.A. Concession' is a laid back record, filled
with love songs/ballads/back seat fodder/window fogging material,
whatever way you want to call it, but it's also a musician/songwriter/producer's
record, featuring several vocalists, a whole plethora of musicians
including members of Toto, and of course, the keyboard texturing,
so pop goes the AOR.***
Tracks such as the "Never Gonna Let Her Go," "The Way
of the Night," and "Love Has Found a Way" sound like they
could be in the background of say, Miami Vice, trust me they
are perfect. However, "Leave Her to Heaven," "Caught Inside
Your Heart," "From L.A. to Tokyo," and the ballad "Worlds
Away" are standardized melodic rock material, again being
mellow of course. ***
'L.A. Concession' is something different to the world
of melodic rock, when you listen to it an really think about
it, I mean most albums are filled with arena rock standards
and riff upon riff, but Slama decided to take a more eased
back approach, forgoing the hard rock atmosphere to protrude
the sweet tooth for pop sensibility. True at times you wish
there was a rocker on the album, but for material like this,
it's not a bad effort, not at all.***
-Tommy Hash
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