•
Rating: One of the lesser classics of the Adult Oriented Rock scene, the debut and only album by the New Yorkers Red Dawn, undoubtedly represents the classic phenotype of an underrated and denigrated album by the media at the time that would deserve, at the very least, to be re-listened to and compared with the enormous quantity of more or less valid records that lately crowd with increasing zeal the pages of our magazines, from which it differs significantly due to the huge amount of excellent musical phrasing as well as the compositional taste displayed by this five-member ensemble.
Indeed, released in the year 1994, when the entire recording world seemed to be drawn to quite different sounds and artistic proposals, "Never say surrender" represented, and perhaps still represents, the best that a band dedicated to an almost pedantic reenactment of melodic dictates can offer within the texture of a single record, namely a handful of technically and structurally impeccable tracks, enhanced by truly striking melodic openings, irresistible choruses, and highly faultless refrains, all seasoned with the innate class possessed by this true big band.
In fact, Red Dawn, formed around the artistic, musical, and compositional talent of maestro of the ivories David Rosenthal, famous for his time at the court of the quintessential man in black Ritchie Blackmore and his Rainbow, could count on the contribution of a handful of high-ranking musicians such as vocalist, and former Network, Larry Baud endowed with a warm and seductive vocal timbre, the little-known but technically excellent guitar hero Tristan Avakian, as well as the rhythmic contribution of the duo Chuck Burgi and Greg Smith, both musicians with histories in bands like Zeno, JL Turner and the like.
The result of this fortunate partnership is a fantastic album that encapsulates in ten episodes, musical influences ranging from the virtuosic and technical hard rock of Van Halen, to the pomp rock of Giuffria, Prophet, and House of Lords, to the American metal class tendencies of various Dokken, Ratt, and Lion, for a final result full of emotional vitality and pure compositional magic. The band’s introductory triptych to their audience is truly heart-stopping, indeed starting from the initial "Flyin' high", the band offers us all the best of their repertoire making us participants in a sonic onslaught perpetrated on the fiery notes of a raspy guitar racing on harmonic scales and guitar licks recalling the best axe masters of the past decade, suave and increasingly present keyboards weaving tasteful rhythmic embroidery, and a powerful, pleasantly raspy voice which always manages to carve out a prominent position within an inspired songwriting like never before, making tracks like the subsequent "I'll be there" that, while presenting a more faint start among Journey/Bad Company-like arpeggios, builds up around an exciting crescendo, then explodes in all its thunderous power around the central bridge, and the pressing "Liar", pure and untainted class metal characterized by a catchy and engaging chorus and a series of swirling solos, a perfect vade mecum for any melodic rocker worthy of this title.
With such a breathtaking start, the rest of the album could easily lose steam and interest, yet first the more structured and linear "I can't get over you", presenting the band grappling with numerous Swedish-style melodic rock digressions à la Stage Dolls meets Treat, and then the adrenaline-packed "She's on fire", with a vaguely progressive rhythm, restore credibility to the band which enriches their sound spectrum thanks to continuous injections in the strictly pomp rock field, so that both the mid-tempo "Christine" and the tear-jerker ballad "Take these chains", truly moving, draw Red Dawn significantly closer to the seminal Survivor, Journey, Foreigner, and Bad Company.
An album of disarming maturity recorded by a great band that, as history teaches, will shatter into a thousand senseless musical projects, leaving us with the regret of pondering what could have been, and yet wasn't....
Loading comments slowly
