Arctic Rain - 'The One'

Fancy some more high quality Swedish AOR? This is an outstanding release that will appeal to fans of late 80s hair metal like Danger Danger or Dokken. Pete Alpenborg is the main man behind this release. He may not be a well-known name yet but he’s previously penned songs for Revolution Saints, Issa, Toby Hitchcock and others and he’s really excelled himself with this collection of melodic classics.

At first glance, you might think this is just another CD you can play ‘Frontiers AOR Bingo’ with. It features a generic band name, off-the-shelf artwork, recycled song names (“Love Of My Life”, “Breakout”, “Lift Me Up”) and a girl’s name song (“Madeleine” - not that one). All you’re missing is involvement from the excellent Alessandro Del Vecchio for a full house! But don’t be fooled; these are quality performances of memorable songs.

I don’t know where Magnus Berglund (guitars) and Tobias Johnsson (Vocals) have been hiding but they rip up a storm on the opening track “Love Of My Life” and then keep up that standard throughout. They deliver imperious performances, especially on the second track “Lost”, while “Give Me All Of Your Love” is reminiscent of a Whitesnake track in title and quality.

I like a lot of things about this band, but my absolute favourite thing is the name of the bass player. It’s Gert Daun; as in Gert Daun Shep or Gert Daun on it (if you really want it). All joking aside, he’s great, as are Jonas Jonsson on drums and Alpenborg himself on the keyboards. Try this one out – it could be the surprise hit of the year.