OUTLOUD

Outloud were formed in Athens back in 2004 and this release is their second album, following on from 2009’s ‘We’ll Rock You To Hell And Back Again’. Their debut record was a relative commercial success, particularly in their native Greece, and did much to raise their profile. Fast forward to 2011 and the band, which consists of vocalist Chandler Mogel, band founder Bob Katsionis on guitar and keyboards, fellow guitarist Tony Kash, Sverd T. Soth on bass (no, I don’t think it’s an anagram) and drummer Mark Cross, have put together a collection of 10 songs, entitled ‘Love Catastrophe’. The combination of the extremely cheesy spoken intro to the first track, ‘We Came To Rock’ and the band photo on the back cover would possibly lead you to the conclusion that this album would sound like a cross between Guns N’ Roses and Zodiac Mindwarp. However, the songs presented on this release are, for the most part, high quality AOR/Heavy Rock in the mould of, say, Europe or Bon Jovi. All of the songs reach a good standard but the standouts are probably ‘Falling Rain’, which is an up tempo rocker with an intro that sounds similar to Helloween’s ‘I Want Out’, ‘Live Again’ which is a heavy, pounding track with some great guitar work, ‘Someday’ which is a powerful ballad, featuring a classy acoustic intro and ‘Clean Hands’ which, despite the rather strange title, is a decent track. The individual performances of the band members are all of a high level, with the vocals of Mogel being particularly noteworthy, and the production is crisp and heavy. All in all, this is a very good release with some classic tracks and one that I would recommend.

LABEL:

FORMAT:

AOR Heaven

Album

LOVE CATASTROPHE

Review by Dave Uphill

RUNNING TIME:

41:41

RELEASE DATE:

25th July 2011

TRACK LISTING

1) We Came To Rock
2) Falling Rain
3) Live Again
4) Waiting For Your Love
5) The Night That Never Ends
6) Someday
7) Underground
8) Isolation Game
9) Clean Hands
10) Love Catastrophe

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:

Various

"...the songs presented on this release are, for the most part, high quality AOR/Heavy Rock in the mould of, say, Europe or Bon Jovi."