{"id":50731,"date":"2015-12-05T09:19:32","date_gmt":"2015-12-05T14:19:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/?p=50731"},"modified":"2015-12-05T09:19:32","modified_gmt":"2015-12-05T14:19:32","slug":"say-orion-cd-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/2015\/say-orion-cd-review\/","title":{"rendered":"S.A.Y. | Orion<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Ron Higgins<\/span>
\n– Columnist —<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Say-Orion500\"Sweden once again offers up some tasty melodic hard rock to satisfy the world\u2019s musical appetite. S.A.Y. is a new project featuring longtime members of StoneLake, which pumped out six studio records between 2006 and 2013. As you might expect from an album released on Aussie Andrew McNeice\u2019s MelodicRock Records, this debut album is filled with soaring vocals, blazing guitars, rhythmic keyboards and pounding drums that keep your toes tapping and provides the perfect soundtrack to a summer drive with the top down.<\/p>\n

Vocalist Peter Grundstr\u00f6m, who channels Tony Harnell at times, and guitarist Jan \u00c5kesson organized this new project after playing together in several different bands over the years. Their musical collaboration dates all the way back to 1984 when, playing at the same venue for different bands, Jan left his Ravage band to join Peter\u2019s Whitelight.<\/p>\n

The album starts out furiously with a slamming version of the Bee Gees classic, \u201cTragedy.\u201d Actually, it only contains the same title as the early disco tune, but like the Brothers Gibb song, this song is quite good and is one of the record\u2019s highlights. It\u2019s very melodic and features excellent guitar work from Jan. It\u2019s certainly a good way to introduce the world to this new band.<\/p>\n

Other album highlights include \u201cEight Hundred Miles\u201d and \u201cDream On.\u201d And no, \u201cDream On\u201d isn\u2019t a cover of Aerosmith\u2019s classic either. \u201cEight Hundred Miles\u201d has a driving rhythm and extremely catchy chorus with fist pumping chants of \u201cWhat I know!\u201d and another great guitar solo. This might just be the best song on the record and would\u2019ve been a great lead-off track. Of course, any poker player knows that it\u2019s never a good idea to show your hand up front so it\u2019s probably for the best that they held this little gem until midway through the album. \u201cDream On\u201d is interesting because it features a crunchier guitar sound as well as rougher vocals. It sounds like a completely different band until the chorus kicks in.<\/p>\n

Other songs include \u201cHeroes\u201d, \u201cCrash and Burn\u201d, \u201cNever Say Goodbye\u201d (not a cover of Bon Jovi\u2019s ballad masterpiece), \u201cBroken Wings\u201d (nope, not Mr. Mister), \u201cIllusion\u201d, \u201cLove and Affection\u201d (okay, really, it\u2019s probably time to start coming up with some more original titles; this is not Nelson\u2019s great song, although the entire album is done in much the same vein as Nelson\u2019s classic debut), and \u201cMemories\u201d (definitely not The King classic!). All of these feature great guitar work and impressive vocals but probably the best of the bunch is \u201cIllusion\u201d which has a really cool guitar intro. Unfortunately, the high adrenaline guitar riffing disappears once the singing starts and what once promised to be an up-tempo beast of a song limps along at a snail\u2019s pace until midway through the song when the riffing returns. It\u2019s still an excellent song; it\u2019s just not the homerun it was on target to become.\t<\/p>\n

Wrapping up this fine debut release is \u201cUnder Your Spell\u201d, another album standout. It\u2019s got a nice, classic eighties sound (in a good way) with powerful guitars and keyboards and another Neal Schon worthy guitar solo from Jan. It\u2019s very radio-friendly and would\u2019ve been a huge MTV hit circa 1985.<\/p>\n

Overall, this is a very solid release and should make lovers of good melodic rock and roll very happy. It\u2019s not perfect, but it\u2019s good enough to warrant many purchases and repeated plays. Hopefully they will start working on a suitable follow-up, and some creative, original song titles to go with it! <\/p>\n

Genre: Melodic Rock<\/p>\n

Band:
\nJan \u00c5kesson – Guitars, Keyboards, Bass, Backing Vocals
\nPeter Grundstr\u00f6m \u2013 Vocals<\/p>\n

With: Jens Westberg – Drums<\/p>\n

Track Listing:
\n01. Tragedy
\n02. Heroes
\n03. Crash And Burn
\n04. Never Say Goodbye
\n05. Eight Hundred Miles
\n06. Broken Wings
\n07. Dream On
\n08. Love And Affection
\n09. Illusion
\n10. Memories
\n11. Under Your Spell<\/p>\n

Label: Melodicrock Records<\/p>\n

Website(s):\thttps:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sayoriontheband<\/a><\/p>\n

Hardrock Haven Rating: 8.2\/10<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Ron Higgins – Columnist — Sweden once again offers up some tasty melodic hard rock to satisfy the world\u2019s musical appetite. S.A.Y. is a new project featuring longtime members of StoneLake, which pumped out […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":50732,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12394],"tags":[2317,11885,2901,1643,11884,11883,11886],"class_list":{"0":"post-50731","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arcrvws2015","8":"tag-cd-review","9":"tag-jan-akesson-peter-grundstrom","10":"tag-melodic-rock","11":"tag-melodicrock-records","12":"tag-orion","13":"tag-s-a-y","14":"tag-stonelake"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}