Review: Cry Of Dawn ft Goran Edman – 'Cry Of Dawn'

Real men don’t eat quiche. Real men don’t wear chinos. Real men don’t read the instructions… but every now and then, real men do listen to AOR. Much maligned within the ‘rawk’ fraternity as being too lightweight, AOR is the Marmite genre that many will never admit in listening to, whilst breaking out the air keytar. Hell, I love it. “Escape” and “Frontiers” by Journey, “4” by Foreigner and “Vital Signs” by Survivor, are all albums that I place on a pedestal. Albums that helped give birth to melodic rock. The latter especially is relevant, when considering Cry Of Dawn. The classic Jimi Jamison (RIP) Survivor line up might not have spawned THAT song, but it went one better in producing arguably one of the best AOR albums, full stop. The debut album from Scandinavian vocal legend Goran Edman and Cry Of Dawn channels Jamison era Survivor perfectly, from the clean vocals to the keyboard sound, it couldn’t be more 80’s if it wore legwarmers. With over 50 albums to his name, as well as a writing and production career, Edman can certainly be described as prolific, and for this album he roped in Michael Palace to help out on guitar duties. Interestingly enough, Palace plays more solos on ‘Cry Of Dawn’ than he did on his own recent album ‘Master Of The Universe’, which I feel suffered from keyboard saturation. When opening track ‘Chance’ kicks in, it’s like the last few decades never happened. A pulsating drum beat with a simple chugging guitar sound over some sparkly keyboards. Edman’s vocals are immaculate, but look elsewhere if you like a bit of grit with your vocals, these are cleaner than clean. The guitar solos are what separates Cry Of Dawn from countless other AOR bands today. Palace continuing the fine work on ‘Listen To Me’, amongst many others. ‘When Right Is Wrong’ strikes the right balance on how much inspiration an artist can take from the 80’s in today’s current climate. Massive hooks galore on a track David Coverdale ought to have written. Numerous movies from the 80’s used AOR acts on their soundtracks, and ‘Tell It To My Heart’ should really have Tom Cruise dancing round the house in his tighty whiteys, or Kevin Bacon doing that angst-ridden dance that he perfected in ‘Footloose’. Very Night Ranger like in places, especially the backing vocals. ‘Light A Light’, and ‘Can’t Go On’ continue with the layered vocals, both being light, fluffy, and totally inoffensive. ‘Building Towers’ and ‘Hands Around My Heart’ are the requisite big power ballads on the album. Every AOR album needs at least one, and Cry Of Dawn give us two. The closing trio of ‘Live After Love’, ‘Yearn’, and ‘Tell Me’ feature more of the same ingredients; light keyboards, big vocals, and some sweet guitar solos. Hold a gun to my head, and I’ll tell you that ‘Yearn’ is perhaps the weakest track on the album, not really hitting the heights of the others, but in the same breath, I’ll tell you that ‘Tell Me’ is perhaps the strongest. An all out AOR assault that allows the listener to switch off the outside world, and return to a decade where Trump was how kids described farting, and clowns were nice and didn’t go around the countryside scaring the shit out of people dogging in the woods. Review: Dave Stott