Stephen
Third installment of Italian's Khymera, fronted and produced by the legendary Dennis Ward whom famous with its slick and shiny polished sound, and the man also surprisingly has such an emotional and great voice and fits the music nicely after replacing Steve Walsh in their second release, "A New Promise". Behind the keyboard set is Daniel Liverani, the mastermind and founder of this band and his playing is quite dominant in this album, as predicted.
Another important thing behind the scene is that most songs were written by Tom and James Martin, a prominent songwriter which also written many tracks on Vega's sensational album, "Kiss of Life", in 2010. Musically, this is standing right between the melodic hard rock and tender AOR, so you'll have a balance mix of uptempo hard rock, midtempo tunes, and passionate ballads.
"Beautiful Life" and "Borderline" opened the album nicely and both are my fave songs. "Love Has Been And Gone" is a beautiful and emotional ballad, the lyric is painful and obvious on the words 'nobody wants to lose but somebody has to cry', pure genius! The second half of the album is getting better and better. "No Sacrifice", "The Greatest Wonder", and "Fight For Yesterday" are consecutive hits, "Love Will Find You" is a soothing AOR piece and the magnificent chorus will chill your spine. "Stay Forever" is another gem of the album, and the rest are good with no bad tracks at all.
This record is so great that the magical moment is still there after 4 years since its release and I believe the band itself will find a hard time to top this off. One of the best albums of 2008 and big applause for Dennis Ward, Daniel Liverani, and The Martin brothers. Bravo!