Italian act WHEELS OF FIRE delighted us two years ago with the delicious ‘Hollywood Rocks’ (which reached the #42 position on the charts of the Japanese Burrn! magazine), a debut embraced with open arms by the Melodic Rock community.
Now with a stable line-up and great guest stars, they are releasing the sophomore CD “Up For Anything”.
Front man Davide ‘Dave Rox’ Barbieri and guitar player Stefano Zeni were already the core of the first recording, since then the duo was joined by Marcello Suzzani on bass, Andrea Vergori on keyboards & piano and Fabrizio Uccellini on drums.
Dave and Stefano are also the songwriters and arrangers for all tracks of the album, on some songs Alessandro Del Vecchio (Lionville, Edge Of Forever, Hardline) and Pierpaolo “Zorro 11” Monti (Shining Line, Charming Grace, Lionville) lend a helping hand in the writing process as well.
The contribution of Dave and Stefano impressively show the progression of Wheels Of Fire in the songwriting department, now with more mature and solid compositional structures staying true to their Melodic Rock sound of the ’80s.
“Up For Anything” stand for instantly memorable vocal lines and choruses with carefully arranged harmonies, hook laden powerful guitar riffs and solos combined with well balanced keyboards and piano entries, big sounding drums and solid bass grooves.
Pushed forward by powerful drums, the mid- and up-tempo rockers like “Follow Your Heart”, the catchy (title says all) “Turning Up The Radio”, “Don’t Walk Away” or the bouncing “Come Back Home” shine with their melodic guitar riffs and a healthy dose of crystal clear keyboards.
As expected the verses of the songs always lead to a super catchy chorus and are crowned with melodic and solid guitar solos.
Rock ballads have always been a big plus of the melodic rockers and so the band has paid very careful attention to the softer moments in the form of the Bon Jovi-esque “Tell Me” (awesome melody) and the charming midtempo “Web Of Lies”.
They serve a decent portion of guitar power and the arrangements also include a grand piano, while the concluding masterpiece in this category, the soaring “Everytime, even adds a string section, making it a full blown wide screen listening experience.
On the list of international guests are James Christian (House of Lords) who performs a vocal duet with Dave on the aforementioned midtempo rocker “Don’t Walk Away”, and is his wife Robin Beck joining him on backing vocals.
Swedish guitar player Rob Marcello (Danger Danger, Marcello-Vestry) laid downs a stratopheric solo for “No Mercy”, while talented Michele Luppi (Secret Sphere, Los Angeles, ex-Vision Divine) contibutes with backing vocals and vocal arrangements.
There’s a real horn section by Italian musicians on the anthemic “Yesterday’s Gone”, a track that seems recorded during the magical late ’80s.
This is the kind of release that AOR and Melodic Rock fans will love instantly.
“Up For Anything” is pure 1989-like, no modern trends or twists here, just soaring melodies and catchy rhythms.
Production is excellent, really well developed in three parts by specialized musicians in their matter: Michele Luppi produced, engineered and recorded the vocals, bass and guitars were handled by Alessandro Del Vecchio, while Roberto Priori (Danger Zone) worked the rest and mixed the whole stuff brilliantly.
Surely in my ‘Best Of’ album list of the year.
01 – Follow Your Heart
02 – Don’t Walk Away
03 – Turning Up The Radio
04 – Pain
05 – Web Of Lies
06 – Lay Your Body Down
07 – Respect
08 – Come Back Home
09 – Tell Me
10 – Nothing To Lose
11 – No Mercy
12 – Yesterday’s Gone
13 – Everytime
Davide “Dave Rox” Barbieri: Lead & backing vocals
Stefano Zeni: Lead, rhythm & acoustic guitars
Marcello Suzzani: Bass
Andrea Vergori: Keyboards & piano
Fabrizio Uccellini: Drums
Special guest musicians:
James Christian: duet and backing vocals on “Don’t Walk Away”
Robin Beck: Backing vocals on “Don’t Walk Away”
Rob Marcello: Guitar solo on “No Mercy”
Michele Luppi: Backing vocals on “Lay Your Body Down”, “Nothing To Lose” & “No Mercy”
Roberto Zari, Andrea Dal Santo: Backing Vocals
C. Allifranchini, D. Granieri, G. Distefano: horns on “Yesterday’s Gone”