Danny Vaughn has always had one of those dusty, powerful rock-star voices that make anything he sings sound good — sort of like Steve Walsh and Jeff Scott Soto. You may recall that Vaughn was frontman of the underrated late-Eighties/early-Nineties hard-rock band Tyketto ("Forever Young," anyone?). He then regrouped with some of his Tyketto bandmates years later, going in a more organic direction under the group name Vaughn and later participated in the Frontiers Records' vanity project From the Inside. Now the man returns with his own name and arguably the best album of his long career.
From the opening seconds of Traveller's first track "Miracle Days," Vaughn proves time is on his side. The song is a scorcher — with a massive chorus, Peter Gabriel-like chants and bagpipes. Let's see Jorn pull off a combo like that! The rest of the album reflects that song's multiple layers and full production. Elsewhere, the title track vividly recalls Tyketto, "Lifted" reaches hymn-like heights, and "The Warrior's Way" ranks as one of the most aggressive songs in Vaughn's catalog. A few acoustic-based pieces find their way into the 12-song set, fitting perfectly alongside heavier and more adventurous material. Vaughn's emotion-drenched lyrics are particularly poignant in songs like "Restless Blood' (about the bond between fathers and sons), "Think Of Me in the Fall" (which finds Vaughn pining for lost love) and "Death of the Tiger" (full of cool lines that I don't quite understand).
Melodic hard rock lives, and Danny Vaughn proves that this type of music can still sound tough, tender, classic and contemporary all at the same time.
Track Listing:
1) Miracle Days
2) Badlands Rain
3) Traveller
4) Restless Blood
5) That's What She Says
6) The Touch of Your Hand
7) Lifted
8) The Warrior's Way
9) The Measure of a Man
10) Think of Me in the Fall
11) Death of the Tiger
12) Better By Far
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