Artist: Last Autumn's Dream 
   Title: Saturn Skyline
   Label: Escape Music

'Saturn Skyline' is the fourth release from Last Autumns Dream and once again Mikael Erlandson and the boys have come up trumps with a great melodic hard rock album.  With the likes of former Fair Warning guitarist Andy Maleck and the formidable Talisman rhythm section of Marcel Jabob and Jamie Borger behind the band, the album smells of success before you even hear the first note.

Things get underway in emphatic style with ‘For The Young And The Wild’ and instantly the class that is Erlandson’s vocals set this album apart from typical albums in the genre.  The rest of the band aren’t too shabby either, especially the guitar work of Maleck as he scythes his way through the track with some quite remarkable riffs.

The same high quality continues with ‘After Tomorrows Gone’, another great example of quality musicianship mixed with a great song.  This is top notch stuff and just what the genre needs right now.

The tempo is picked up a little as the band mix it up a bit with the tremendous feel good rocker ‘Pages’, before returning with what could be a new melodic hard rock anthem ‘Rock n' Roll Is Saving My Soul’.  This song optimizes the whole genre with its soaring guitars, great chorus and a fantastic vocalist to carrying it all off.

The next track ‘I Know A Lot About Love’ carries on that familiar AOR feel and also carries on the same high quality musicianship.  With Erlandson’s formidable vocals this track will have fans of the genre reaching for their hankies as they weep with joy at the superlative quality, carried not only on this track, but throughout the entire album.

The pace picks up again with a real hard rocking masterstroke in the form of ‘Critical’, a track that rocks from the off.  However, the band show that they aren’t stuck in the Melodic Rock past as they bring a little modern rock into the mix with the fantastic ‘Supersonic’.  A track that is very much is the same vein as the new Europe album 'Secret Society' with its more modern sound.

What AOR/Melodic Rock album wouldn’t be complete without a superb ballad and 'Saturn Skyline' is no different as the band pull at the listeners heart strings with ‘Frozen Heart’, before once again changing the pace of things with two great up tempo rockers firstly with ‘American Girl’, a song that has that definite summertime feel about it and secondly the riff laden ‘Domino’.

The album comes to a close with my favourite track off the album, the fantastic mood filled tones of ‘Still On The Run’, which brings to close another fantastic release from the band and another fantastic step in the right direction for the whole Melodic/Hard Rock genre, as it embraces the more modern rock sound and whilst not forgetting its roots.

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