Italy's Frontiers Records has made a practice of creating numerous AOR/melodic hard rock studio projects with varying degrees of success. One of the better ones is Khymera, which began in 2003 as a union between multi-instrumentalist Daniele Liverani (Empty Tremor and the Genius rock operas) and Kansas vocalist Steve Walsh. Now, on A New Promise, Khymera pairs Liverani with Dennis Ward – best known as the bassist in the German melodic hard rock band Pink Cream 69 – on vocals (plus drummer Dario Ciccioni and guitarist Tommy Ermolli). The surprising result is something much more aggressive and powerful than Khymera's self-titled debut with Walsh. In fact, if you dig PC69, you'll probably dig songs like "Let It Burn," "Looking For You," "You Can't Take Me," "Fields of Fire" and "All Is Gone." Even though he's never handled lead vocals in any of his previous projects, Ward has a voice built to rock - think Jeff Scott Soto meets PC69 singer David Readman.
The album's 13 tracks are penned by such renowned songwriters as Soto and Don Barnes, so if the purist in you scoffs at bands that don't write their own material, consider yourself warned. But the presence of outside songwriters really shouldn't detract from this listening experience. A New Promise is loaded with tunes that may not have packed the same punch had they been composed by Liverani or Ward. Slickly produced and meticulously mixed, A New Promise makes good on its title and bodes well for the Khymera name.
Track Listing:
1) A New Promise
2) Alone
3) Let It Burn
4) Looking For You
5) All That I Have
6) The Damage Is Done
7) After the Way
8) You Can't Take Me
9) Tomorrow Never Comes
10) Fields of Fire
11) If You Dare To Dream
12) Give In To the World
13) All Is Gone
Printer Friendly Page
Send to a Friend
