Artist: Firenote
Title: Firenote
Type: Album
Label: IVK Records

It not often nowadays you receive a full cd release for review, this one immediately drew me to the cartoon biker chick artwork, looking all seductive etc…! But then, look at the tracklist ‘She Stole My Speedo’s’, hmm, whilst I am often guilty of a little cheese, I was wondering what brand this would be.

These Finns have high hopes, their title track states “it’s time for the show, thousands of people are ready to roll, can’t you feel the earth is already shaking”. This is pure 80’s lyrical content, all loved up or not loved up at all and feeling rejected etc. Musically it’s pretty tight ignoring the lyrical debilitation. They have been labelled AOR, but in general amongst the better tunes, there is a more metallic flare. The vocals, as expected, are clear, crisp, and powerful, some aspects remind me of TNT or Pink Cream 69 and a bit of Pretty Maids, as is the case with the musical arrangements. ‘Danger’ reminds you of the melodic sounds of Sonata Arctica, simply with the keyboard influence running through the track, its mid tempo but upbeat and actually gives a good account of the band complete with a rather appropriate key change towards the end of the track.

‘Speed Freak’ gets much more like it and is a tune that most of you will enjoy. It’s melodic hard rock, with splashes of metal thrown in, but as I mentioned at the start of this review, it is very 80’s. Lovers of that decade will really enjoy this. A lot of bands have been coming out of the woodwork, jumping on the new popularity found within this musical genre, not a bad thing, but there are quite a few bands like this now and I don’t feel this is quite there in standing out from the crowd just yet. But then, this is a debut album; one hopes that things will get much better on subsequent releases. This is an album of hits and misses and undeniably retro with extra cheese.

http://www.firenote.com/indexfire.php

Paul Maddison

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