Stephen
If you're familiar and in love with two astonishing albums from the past, Journey's "Escape" and Red Dawn's "Never Say Surrender", then I have high hopes that you'll dig Myland's third offering, "Light of A New Day". Bringing out the vintage AOR edge of the early 80s, combining it with the delicate melodic rock of the 90s, and swirl it nicely with some heavy touch of traditional metal, perhaps Myland is one of the few that has the capability of doing it perfectly, and of course, at the same time paying attention to the importance of great songwriting.
With a freshly shuffled formation, led by the drummer Paolo Morbini and a complete new faces on the rhythm section, Myland tried to maintain the position they achieved with the highly praised "No Man's Land" in 2008. Franco Campanella, whose voice is reminiscent of Bryan Adams, maybe Rod Stewart a bit, did a fantastic job in filling the shoe left by former singer, Guido Priori. Hox Martino also steals the show with his inspiring shred, he makes a great companion to Campanella's passionate voice.
The Journey-driven track, "Living In The Magic" and the groovy Toto-like of "Love Hurts So Bad" began the album decently. Good tracks but I doubt that both are their greatest songs because my jaw was dropping as soon as "Flying Higher" started its first note. This is heavy and very melodic, an enthralling composition which reminds me of Red Dawn's magical moment. Later you'll encounter "Shattered Dreams" that moves with the same groove and also another personal favourite. Then, "In Your Eyes" came along, a midtempo ballad that's influenced by 90s Whitesnake, it's a pretty and emotional song that if you're a woman, you'll probably got carried away and burst into tears. "Never Stop Screaming Rock" and "Fire Burns Desire" pump up the tempo wildly, allow the barking guitars to fly with the punchy chorus.
The revamped line-up apparently don't need much time to gel, the chemistry's so tight as if they're already playing together for more than 20 years. The songwriting is top notch, I still spotted couple of average songs standing on the verge of fillers but all in all, most of them are solid as rock. The sound production is warm and wonderful. This one is not to be passed if your ears are made for American melodic rock beauty, done in a classy Italian way.