|Diamond Dawn - ‘Overdrive’ (Frontiers Records)|
|Written by Rob Watkins|
|Wednesday, 13 February 2013 04:00|
The musical spirit and creative attitude of Diamond Dawn was born out of the idea that compromise just won’t do when it comes to great melodic rock, the group getting together in Gothenburg Sweden in 2011 ahead of this their debut album release ‘Overdrive.
With that philosophy in mind the album is brought creatively to life via `Into Overdrive` a soaring American Orientated kind of rocker with everything in pitch perfect place as would be expected for a studio offering from this particular genre of music. You want great melodic vocal patterns, smooth production and quite catchy tunes to boot? Well you’ve come to the right place.
Whilst on the subject of catchy tunes `Take Me Higher` delivers it all and more with a nod of the influential head towards that golden harmony filled late 80`s period with the keyboard/piano commanding large elements of the tracks herein as on the super harmonic `Crying` and the bouncy chant-a-long `Standing As One` a Euro anthem if ever there was one
`California Rush` rocks things up a tad with some great six-string moments amidst the brilliant song arrangement and crystal clear vocal performance. `Indestructible` too continues the pattern of hook after hook as per each composition preceding it, albeit maybe this time with too much inspirational influence from that aforementioned late 80`s AOR era
There’s still a sizeable audience for this material though and the no compromise sprit the guys in Diamond Dawn have for their craft is played and shaped wondrously on songs such as the uber commercial `Turn It Up` and `The Hunter`. Look if you like your AOR you just need to just check out the harmonies and melodies contained within `Give It All`, an song that riffs it up into a gem of a choral arrangement. As expected the power ballad or whatever you wanna refer to it as which occupies every American Orientated Rock opus on the planet comes forth with `Don’t Walk Away` and it’s another anthemic masterpiece carved with love and chockfull of melody and musical intelligence.
‘Overdrive’ is brought to fitting conclusion with `Powergames` which has more powerhouse vocal tones on offer, also ending this collection great hook laden harmony filled melodic songs on a epic high.