Stephen
'Live And Learn' is the follow-up to their eponymous debut and still reinforced by Heartland's mainman, Chris Ousey, and also Kenny Kaos on guitar, this band is relatively unknown and even unheard by many people in the melodic rock community. Ousey's vocal quality is legendary and many people has admit it including me, while he still retains that magical voice here, the problem with this album lied on the inability to create a sparkling song that's capable of topping charts back in the days.
I'm not saying that this is a poor album, in fact it's a good one, but right after one spin and another rewind, you probably will say, 'okay I love couple of tracks, the rest are so so, some are good, some are fillers'. I'll start with the best tracks here, which in my humble opinion, are the ballads, 'The Sleeper' and 'Wildest Dreams'; 'Come What May' that has the classic U2 feel to the rhythm; and the creme-de-la-creme, 'Dancing On The Edge of The World'.
Some songs has grown on me such as 'Twisting The Knife', 'Under Her Spell', and 'It's You', but can't deny that tracks like 'You Live and You Learn', 'Take It Or Leave It', and 'Stealing The Keys' won't be sorely missed if they're left out. Musically, this is heavier than Heartland but still has that thick AOR border, so it's basically melodic hard rock but softer in some ways. The production is good and I think it's harmless to buy this for a cheap price which is pretty easy to get, especially for those couple of tracks and Ousey's hypnotizing vocal.
70%-75% is an acceptable range for this one.