John Pratt may ring a bell with some melodic rock fans as he fronted Firefly, who released three enjoyable melodic/hard rock albums in the early 90's. In fact some members of Firefly appear on this album including drummer Ron Wikso (Greg Rollie Band/Foreigner/The Storm), as well as session percussionist Chris Trujilio.

The thirteen songs on here have been written over a period of years and are a mix of mid-tempo melodic rock and catchy AOR.

The title track and 'Take Me There' would have been airplay hits back in the 80's, whilst on 'Naivete's Ball' John Pratt's singing reminded me of Kansas's Steve Walsh. A very accomplished song all round.

'Never Said Goodbye' will delight AOR fans with its Journey approved chorus and summery feel to the music. The music is faultless as you'd expect with accomplished session musicians and there is plenty of musical variety to draw in even the casual AOR fan, as often some AOR albums can be a bit too laid back musically for many listeners.

I do think the specialist labels like Frontiers have missed a trick here, as this album contains a strong set of songs and is deserving of a place in any melodic rock/AOR fans collections.

****

Review by Jason Ritchie