Angelica - Thrive

That’s strange! At first, I thought that Angelica – yeap that Canadian hard rock band from the 80s – is back. Then I saw the lady on the cover and realized that I’m dealing with a totally different group.
 
Angelica Rylin from The Murder of My Sweet has decided (as she said) to make her childhood dream come true with the release of a melodic rock/AOR album. Having her bandmate Daniel Flores (songwriter, drum, keys) and a bunch of other songwriters like Harry Hess, Robert Sall, Alessandro Del Vecchio and Anders Wigelius by her side, things became easier for her. We also have Johan Niemann (Crash The System, Novak) on bass, Matt Guillory (James LaBrie, Dali's Dilemma, Zero Hour) on keys, Jesper Stromblad (Dimension Zero and The Resistance) on guitars, Jesper Stromblad (In Flames) on guitars, Magnus Karlsson (Primal Fear) on guitars, Per Berquist (Smash Into Pieces) on guitars & Mats Lindfors (John Norum, Little Star) on guitars. The great production has also been done by Daniel Flores.
 
Musically, we have many references to the 80s female-fronted melodic rock/AOR & pop rock music. Angelica has a wonderful voice and I kinda prefer her singing this kind of stuff in comparison to The Murder of My Sweet. I’m in good faith when it comes to melodic rock/AOR works like this but how am I supposed to react when the first nice track “Breaking My Heart” has the same synth melody with Sandra’s “In the Heat of the Night”! Com’ on! Do you think that we started listening to music yesterday? Why should anyone have to “steal” that part from Sandra’s track?!! Hehe! Anyhow, everything’s been done by the book here. The songwriters have built a strong name in the rock scene throughout the years and I bet they have a dozen of little melodic rock/AOR & pop-rock tracks on their shelves just in case. Well, this is one case! Fine to listen to while doing other stuff but nothing more…