The truth is that I was waiting to listen to the new album of 7th Heaven,’cause the previous one (“Silver”) was a good one and showed that something interesting is going on with this band. Although the guys are not new in the scene, they exist from the mid-80s, only a few years ago managed to become more popular in the scene with the double CD “Silver”.
The band now has a new singer, Keith Semple from Ireland who was the winner of the UK talent show Popstars. So far, so good ‘cause the guy has a very good voice that fits the band’s music style perfectly and I believe that was a very smart move on behalf of the mastermind of the band and guitarist, Richie Hofherr. Keith can laso contribute on the songwriting of the band and it seems that this duo (Keith and Richie) will offers us many great songs in the future… just listen to the catchy opener and maybe the best song of the album “Better This Way” and you will understand what I really mean. The album has 18 songs… 6 songs were taken from the band’s previous album “Silver” (“Cellophane”, “Gravity”, “Kill The Cycle”, “Undone”, “While You Dream” and “Ghost Of Me”) and re-recorded with the new singer… the result is truly stunning because those songs were the best tracks of the previous album.
The other 12 songs of the new album are very good and moving in the bands known style… some AOR melodies (nice hooklines, strong refrains), new rock attitude and the result is a fine 80s-90s pop rock mix. I can’t see why some still saying that the band has so many commons with Def Leppard… the one thing is that they indeed have some influences from the second era (“Adrenalize” and after) but all those elements are mixed up with a more pop-rock 90s approach. The album is very good, has a strong, crystal clear production and in general will satisfy those fans that like rock music in general. They have the potentials to make a breakthrough but it’s on the band’s hand to make it happen… maybe they should fix the distribution thing first ‘cause it’s really bad… it’s a pity not to sell or gain more recognition due to a bad distribution. Try them out, if you like pop-rock melodic music, and you will be satisfied… but do not except something really heavy here…
