Artist:  Last Autumn's Dream
   Title: Yes
   Label: GMR Music
 

2010 got off to a great start with Last Autumn’s Dream leading the way with the excellent ‘A Touch Of Heaven’, now here we are in 2011 and the band have set the gold standard with their latest release ‘Yes”.

Again we see Mikael Erlandsson and rest of the band, Andy Malecek (Fair Warning) on guitars, Jamie Borger (Talisman, Treat) on drums and Nalle Påhlsson (Treat, ZanClan, Vindictiv, and Therion) on bass, bring together that special blend of Melodic Hard Rock and AOR to the masses.

Like the albums predecessor ‘A Touch Of Heaven’, the band deliver only top quality music and in Erlandsson they have a vocalist at the top of the Melodic tree of great vocalists.

The album opens up with ‘I’ve Fallen Into You’ and almost instantly you're diving into some of the finest MR of the modern age, from a band that has been dubbed a supergroup, but to me these are just four guys delivering what every fan of the genre wants.  That is big tunes filled with great melodies and a vocalist who can deliver on all levels, and this opener has all these and more.

The great tunes continue with the excellent ‘The Sound Of A Heartbreak’, a real barnstormer with Malecek delivering the goods as only he can on the six-string razor.

Where Erlandsson catches the imagination is when he delivers on ballads and this album is no different, as he unleashes those humbling tones on ‘Another Night’.  The band aren’t afraid to doing a few covers on their albums and on 'A Touch Of Heaven' the band covered Wizzard and Cheap Trick.  Now on this new opus it's ‘A Fools Game’, yes the Michael Bolton song from his debut album, which is given a great 2011 makeover.

It back to original material and another mellower slice of MR in ‘If I Could Change The World’ before picking up the tempo with ‘To Be With You’ then switching back with the excellent ‘Michelle Don’t Live Here No More’, one of the standout tracks of the album for me.

Things get a little more rockier with the toe tapping splendour of ‘In This Thing Too Deep’ before my two great tracks of very different tastes and makeup.  First up it's the superb melody rich ‘Still Standin’ Where Ya Left Me’, then it's my track of the album, the sublime guitar laden ‘Kissin’ Goodbye My Tears’.  This is modern Melodic Rock as it should be.

The band really go for it with the last but one track ‘Survivor’, a track more towards Hard Rock than AOR but a great track all the same and it keeps in touch with the rest of the album without straying too far off the melodic path.

The album closes with another great ballad entitled ‘Alive’ and rounds off another superb release that again like last years ‘A Touch Of Heaven’, sets the bar high for the rest to follow.

 Tracklisting:

1. I've Fallen Into You
2. The Sound Of A Heartbreak
3. Another Night
4. Fool's Game
5. If I Could Change The World
6. To Be With You
7. Michelle Don't Live Here No More
8. In This Thing Too Deep
9. Still Standin' Where Ya Left Me
10. Kissin' Goodbye My Tears
11. Survivor
12. Alive

                  

 

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