Too much melodic Hard Rock… just too much. There are literally thousands of bands and labels carrying the heavy cross of offering something that’s widely labeled or criticized as commercial but truly needs emotional guts and songwriting balls to deliver the goods.OXYGEN come from Sweden and something to be seen in the first place is that the cover artwork of their debut CD is quite intriguing and salutes for what’s possibly lurking inside. And the band name is fine too…
The Press sheet says something about fresh air. Well, the air is strictly not fresh since everything you’ll listen to in this some less than 40 minutes of music is not newly made at all. Take a little bit of GLORY or TREAT, add the current H.E.A.T. vibe and enhance with a rarely seen American/Canadian profile of long bands like DAKOTA or CONEY HATCH and you have a set of songs that surely request a thumbs up respect for their feel and emotional success.
Vocals-wise, “Final Warning” is a winner with a fresh note from Tony Niva (not a newcomer in the Swedish Rock scene) and some sensational backing singing when the song(s) ask(s) for. The instrumentation is fine but does not exceed mastery; the same goes for the production, which could be a little bit more fat and wide but it overall does justice to the shaking songlist. For you, the AOR/melodic Rock followers that have not stuck to the 80s and early 90s and only, “Final Warning” is a nice suggestion. I’ll have this band’s name noted down for further exploration in the future.
P.S.: I read somewhere this CD was already released in Japan under the moniker NIVA and entitled as “Gold From The Future” in 2011. Yet, it’s no official source…
1. Janitor of Love
2. Anything for You
3. When Tomorrow Never Comes
4. I Remember
5. Gold from the Future
6. We Must Fight
7. I Wanna Know for Sure
8. Final Warning
9. Best Days of Our Lives
10. You
11. Bring Back the Joy
Tony Niva – vocals
Roger Ljunggren – guitars
Marcus Persson – keyboards, backing vocals
Bengan Andersson – drums
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