Search - At Vance :: Only Human

Where did they come from?

Dr Nick | Sheffield, S Yorks United Kingdom | 07/31/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"A man in a shop told me to check these guys out. And I'm SO glad I did.These boys have been around for some time, but this is apparently their best and best produced release. How to describe them...neoclassical rock/metal, with commercial leanings, I guess. The vocalist is from the R J Dio school, the guitarist does a pretty good impression of Yngwie, although he's not quite a total clone, the keys are of similar extraction, bass and drums solid, with flashes of brilliance. And the all-important songs. Well, they can certainly pen a decent tune. Big choruses abound, in particular the title track. And each song has a decent melody line to keep the listener interested, before the band go off into an instrumental work-out. The tempos vary from full-on double bass drum thrashers (aka Stratovarius), to power ballads, with some good ol' stompers thrown in, and a couple of instrumentals (The 4 seasons??!!!)My version also has a cover of I Surrender, which I think is pretty good, especially the extended outro. In fact it reminds me of when I saw Yngwie in 1989 with J L Turner on vocals, and they did it too.I gather there are at least 3 different versions of this CD, I certainly recommened this one."