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On disc: AOR



Journey To LA - Claudia Ehrhardt - 9 stars


www.slama101.fr







Journey To LA

Journey To LA
(Escape Music - 2009)


The Paris-born guitarist and keyboarder Fréderic Slama lives in L.A. for more then a decade and he loves AOR and Westcoast music, so after doing some solo albums he started in 2000 the project AOR. The first album was LA Concession. Now it's time for the 4th release - Journey To LA. Again he teamed up with Tommy Denander and Philip Bardowell. The trio invited some renown musicians to join them and so the list of guests reads like the who-is-who of AOR and Westcoast music! To name just a few... Steve Overland, Fergie Frederiksen, Bill Champlin, Steve Lukather and David Williams - to name just a few!
Songs like Don't Turn Back will soon haunt you! But also the emotional balladesque tune Love Remains The Same is catchy and brings back early 80's atmosphere. Close your eyes and let the song carry you away! Actually every one of these dozen tracks should convince you, so I won't recommend one or the other song to check out. One of my favorites is Desperate Dreams... Great guitar play and emotional vocals. Enchanting. Never Surrender is just shy of 8 minutes! A melodic heavy rocker which will win you over with its emotionality - and the guitar passage which dominates the 2nd half and the guitar kinda replaces the vocals. Heartless is another great one and West Into The Sun reminds me a bit of Chris Rea... And with Lost In Your Eyes they add a light jazz touch - very cool! The closer is You're My Obsession, an instrumental.
Thanks to Fédéric Slama for keeping the AOR & Westcoast music alive! And for gathering such an amount of talent on one disc!


9 stars

Claudia Ehrhardt
 

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