If you can still remember the lyrics to Loverboy, Night Ranger, Great White and Triumph songs, then Phil Naro's Glass Mountain is the CD for you. That's not surprising, considering that the New York-based singer's been gigging since the early Eighties, and his influences sound a lot like the aforementioned bands. Once you get past such cliché song titles as "Hot For You," "Love Is A Game" "Bad Boys" and "Find My Way Back to You," this is solid, catchy melodic rock.
Even though, commercially, this album is doomed, melodic hard rock continues to gain an underground following in the United States. Witness the number of Internet mail-order services in this country selling Glass Mountain and other titles. Records like this one do have an audience and will gradually find their way into the right hands. Believe it or not, there are still people out there who enjoy music that actually makes them feel good. (Hell, I'm one of them.) On that level, Glass Mountain succeeds mightily.
As an aside, Naro sent us a CD-R copy of Glass Mountain with a photocopied track listing from the back of the original packaging – a possible reflection on just how bad things have gotten at Z Records, Naro's U.K.-based label that came under fire in early 2003 for allegedly ripping off artists. This is not the forum to argue the veracity of such claims, but Naro at least deserves an extra half-star for his sheer diligence and determination in overstepping his label and getting his music heard.
Cheers, dude.
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