Review by Andy Hawes for MPM
Robbie LaBlanc is an incredibly talented vocalist who has recorded albums with Fury, Blanc Faces and Find Me across a lengthy career.
Although all of those projects had their great moments, I’ve always felt that the quality of the material he has been given over the years hasn’t always done his wonderful voice complete justice. Could this all be about to change with Vitalines, LaBlanc’s project with studio and session titan Tommy Denander? Denander has written or co-written hundreds of songs across a range of genres over the years and has been responsible for some pretty stellar Melodic Rock/AOR with bands/artists such as Radioactive, Prisoner, Jimi (Survivor) Jamison, Robin Beck, Deacon Street, AOR and Fergie Frederiksen amongst others. The omens are good, so let’s see…
Vitalines kick Wheels Within Wheels into motion with a surprisingly hard rocking sound on ‘Judgement Day Is Here’. Denander’s signature sound is, unsurprisingly, all over this, with complex guitar and keyboard riffing and high energy fast-flowing and technically impressive guitar soloing. Responsible for all guitars, bass and keyboards on this album, Denander is clearly very much the man in charge and LaBlanc responds in kind with his usual excellent vocals. It’s a good sound: powerful and melodic but with enough complexity to add interest.
‘Love Not Fantasy’ has elements from the classic Radioactive sound, with some very obvious Toto-isms going on in another hard rocking slab of Melodic Rock/AOR. Denander can clearly produce this stuff in his sleep, having that knack of being able to combine guitars and keyboards to perfection within the soundscape and there is enough going on in the hookline department to keep the AOR crowd happy.
‘Hello World, We Need To Talk’ brings some more quite delightful Toto and general Westcoast influences into play. It’s these touches that tend to elevate Denander’s work a little above some of the generic AOR/Melodic Rock scene out there. His guitar work on this one is very Steve Lukather in style, with lots of interesting melodic touches. Vocally, the melodies aren’t quite as obvious and it takes a few listens to really appreciate them. Hopefully this will give the album a degree of longevity that this kind of stuff doesn’t always have.
‘Cards From Another Game’ has elements from the sort of things you’d expect to hear from Mecca (another of Denander’s old session projects) as it has some interesting rhythmic devices within it and more of the funky, Westcoast stylings of Toto et al. Again, the vocal hooks are there but need some time to fully sink in. LaBlanc sounds absolutely great on this -almost a combination of Joseph Williams and Bobby Kimball tonally. Interesting drumming fills and accents add interest to this, another quality and anthemic piece of uptempo AOR/Melodic Rock.
‘Love and Thunder’ is more of the same, with more quirky chord changes, timing jumps and those little pauses for tinkling piano that Toto were so fond of. The hooks on this one are more immediate and it does possess a quite furious energy, rocking along on chugging guitars and layers of piano and keyboard pads. Probably the most immediate track so far it nonetheless contains some very cool Progressive moments in the instrumental section mid song.
Very well written indeed! At this point I also feel that I should mention the production and mix. There’s a helluva lot going on in here – multiple guitar and keyboard layers and a lot of drum fills, plus all the layers of vocals. Fortunately, the production and mix is razor-sharp and extremely clear and you can hear everything to perfection!
‘When Spirits Fight’ is up next and is a little more mid-tempo and more ‘traditional’ in its AOR sound. Less frenetic and less complex than the preceding tracks, it is a pretty immediate hit, despite a quite complex chorus vocal hook which takes time to embed. It is perfectly placed in the running order, giving us a break from the frantic pace and the thunderous Progressive elements of the preceding tracks. It’s a lengthy track too, clocking in at over 6 minutes, but there is plenty to keep us interested, with some rather lovely guitar soloing in particular.
‘You Never Know With Magic’ is an old Mark Mangold (Touch and Drive She Said) track from his Mystic Healer days. It was always a brilliant piece of AOR and stands out here because it simply sounds very different from the rest of the album. It has that wonderful early – mid 80s keyboard style that Mangold pioneered and there is a ton of space in the production. The reduced complexity compared to what surrounds it works brilliantly and LaBlanc makes it his own with a stellar vocal. A rather lovely surprise to hear this great track again and done so very well!
‘Life Waits For No-one’ has a different sound too, opening with chiming clean guitars. You kinda expect it to be a ballad but it takes a left-turn and becomes a spacious and expansive mid-paced anthem with a truly explosive vocal hook. The production on this is fabulous too. It’s quite lovely to hear Denander take his foot off the gas a little and allow the song to breathe without tons of stuff going on under the melody. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still a lot going on, but it is rather more subtle and is very good!
‘You Are The Reason I Am’ is up next and is a return to the Toto-esque sounds of the earlier tracks, albeit at a slower pace. The combination of guitar and keyboard parts here is quite stunning and testament to the huge talent that Tommy Denander has. Once again, the hookline is a little more subtle and takes a couple of listens to properly worm its way in. It is followed by the title track ‘Wheels Within Wheels’ which returns us to the power of the opening track, with more aggression in the guitars but this time with a much bigger and more immediate vocal hookline.
‘Nothing But Silence’ closes Wheels Within Wheels and opens gently with chiming clean guitars, expansive keys and electronic percussion before kicking in with a colossal chorus hookline. With a more open production than much of the album, this song once again adds a little variety to the overall sound and is an effective closer, being neither a full-on rocker nor a ballad. The chorus hook is so Toto it’s unreal, with LaBlanc’s vocals having a real Joseph Williams quality to them when the hook hits home. Absolutely cracking track!
Well, this is a very good album. If you already know and love the sort of sound that Tommy Denander produces then it’s a no-brainer really. He’s worked with some great singers over the years and this album is no exception, with Robbie LaBlanc providing excellent vocals throughout. As for LaBlanc, this is arguably the most consistent album he has ever sung on.
The songwriting is consistently good and interesting enough to lift it above a lot of the Melodic Rock around at the moment. Some of the hooks are not as obvious as you’d expect from the genre, but that can be more of a strength than a weakness as they do have a habit of worming their way in after repeated listens. There is also enough variety in song style to keep the listener’s interest high, which in my opinion is not always the case in the genre as a whole. That alone is a big selling point for Vitalines in an increasingly crowded Melodic Rock marketplace.
Overall, I’d recommend this to fans of Toto (and similar acts), of Denander’s and LaBlanc’s previous works and anyone who likes a good dose of well-written, well-performed and well-produced Melodic Rock/AOR.
Buy or Stream: https://orcd.co/vitalineswww
