Review by Andy Hawes for MPM
For fans of European Toto-influenced AOR, Italian band Lionville’s first two albums are pretty much essential listening and subsequent albums have also kept the quality levels pretty high.
Now the band are back and with a new singer. Previously, ex-Work of Art vocalist Lars Safsund has undertaken lead vocals on most songs, but on new album, Supernatural, Lionville have secured the very considerable vocal talents of Alexander Strandell (Art Nation, Crowne, Nitrate).
Given the brilliance of Safsund’s work on previous albums, the band needed a world class vocal replacement and Strandell is world class and then some. AOR bands really need a great vocalist to lift the material and breathe life into the hooks and Strandell does that in spades on Supernatural.
One of the issues with AOR is that it can be very formulaic and can all sound very similar, especially in the crowded European scene where, along with West Coast US acts like Toto, the 1980s Scandi AOR sound has influenced so many bands over the past three decades. Lionville sit squarely in this sub-genre of AOR and thus potentially run the risk of becoming lost in a sea of similar acts.
Fortunately, the songwriting, headed by main-man Stefano Lionetti remains of a uniformly high standard throughout the album.
As an AOR fan, I knew exactly what this album was going to sound like before even pressing ‘play’, but the quality of songwriting is such that it more than holds its own and the overall quality of the performances, production and mix are very high indeed. This album is quite simply a masterclass in how to create this kind of music.
The songs are chock-full of planet-levelling hooklines, chunky (but ever so polite) guitar parts, keyboard layers that plink, sparkle and provide atmospheric washes of sound in all the right places and guitar solos that explode out of the speakers on a tsunami of note-flurries, whammy bar dives and aching melodies.
Add Alexander Strandell’s stratospheric vocals into the mix and you have a very fine piece of work indeed. There is also a ton of energy in the recording. Even when the band slows things down a touch, there is still a colossal pulsating groove to proceedings, all of which helps to elevate Lionville to the higher echelons of the European AOR scene.
A song-by-song breakdown of this album isn’t really necessary, but there are some standouts here. ‘The Right Time’ is a wonderful mid-paced burner of a tune, with some utterly fabulous pop hooks and exactly the right balance between chiming guitars and atmospheric keyboards. Add in the requisite ‘love-lorn’ lyrical content and you have the makings of the pinkest and fluffiest AOR anthem of the year.
‘Nothing is Over’ is a nod to previous singer Lars Safsund, being a brilliant uptempo anthem which sounds pretty much exactly like the very best of Safsund’s Swedish band Work of Art. Strandell’s vocals hit heights previously only attained by pilots of stratosphere-visiting spy planes but never sound forced or deliberately ‘for show’; they just lift the huge melodies even further.
Sounding rather like a Swedish version of Toto’s mid-late 80s output with even bigger hooks, this is a quite monumental piece of AOR and no mistake.
Title track, ‘Supernatural’ is proper AOR of the very highest order with keyboard parts straight out of 1982, the sort of production that makes the very best of light and shade, and a chorus where the drums just pound the impossibly powerful hookline straight into your brain before an (unexpectedly) Arabian-flavoured guitar solo scythes out of the mix. Strandell makes full use of the entire breadth of his very considerable vocal range throughout this song to quite stunning effect.
Elsewhere, ‘Gone’ is also very Work of Art in its execution, but with Strandell’s vocals stamping the Lionville identity firmly upon it, while ‘Unbreakable’ is a show-stopping ballad in the very best AOR tradition, with layer upon layer of guitars and keyboards providing the bedrock for Strandell’s highly emotive vocal performance.
Overall, for the dedicated AOR fan, this should be an essential listen as it is immaculately crafted and a great example of the genre.
Fans of harder-hitting music may find it all a bit too ‘pink and fluffy’ for their tastes, but Lionville know their potential audience very well and Supernatural is a treat for the ears if this kind of thing floats your boat. I love it – classy AOR of the highest order.
Pre-Order Here: https://ffm.to/lionvillesupernatural
