Escape Music seem to have hit a rich seam of AOR/melodic rock bands in Finland with Myon and House of Mirrors already having released strong debuts previously on Escape. Now we have Prayer who excel in 80’s style keyboard driven AOR and there are serious amounts of keyboards on this album! There are some gems like ‘Secrets Of The Night’ and the chorus of ‘Anyone With A Broken Heart’.

Vocalist Tapani Tikkanen is well suited to this style of music and the guitar solos are clear and concise as you’d expect on an AOR release. Only slight quibble is that the best songs are stacked at the front of the album.

Hopefully Prayer will do another album and it will be interesting to see how the band’s sound and style develops. For fans of 80’s AOR, a real treat.

***½

Review by Jason Ritchie

***** Out of this world | **** Pretty damn fine |
*** OK, approach with caution unless you are a fan |
** Instant bargain bin fodder | * Ugly. Just ugly