Swedish Jet Trail was formed in 2005 around female vocalist Carolina Lindwall, and this is their album debut.

Jet Trail knows the tricks in the book of making air play oriented heavyrock (maybe not quite AOR, but close), and exercises them well, it’s very competent in that department.

They also have some experienced musicians to do the job: Jon Stavert on guitar (known for playing with bigger Swedish acts and artists), drummer Christian Sundell (ex-Grand Illusion) and bass player Johan Holst.

They master the more laid-back melodic numbers (Gorham’s Cave, Dark Night, Wanted) the mid tempo melodic rockers (Killing Ghosts, Can You hear Me Calling), as well as the hammering rock tunes (Warzone, Never Say Never).

They have the fortune of having a very clear and strong female vocal in front – she carries a lot of the numbers through, just on her voice alone. Quite straight and ordinary sounding numbers get lifted into clearly better than average tracks mostly by her singing.

I think myself able to draw parallels to bands like Rainbow, Lita Ford and Heart in style and sound. The sound is very well produced and almost polished – maybe even a bit too nice to sound like a “real and angry” rock band for my taste.

Don’t be looking for the great lyrical depth in most of the songs – this is generally typical rock’n’metal lyrics, with a female touch that is.

The cover puzzles me a bit, unless it’s just there for the signal value of well produced heavy rock. Cool drawing/painting, but seemingly without any deeper meaning or coherence with the content.

All in all a well sounding, well produced and well playing heavy rock band, that doesn’t really rock my world. A pleasurable journey in popular heavy rock, very solid work, but nothing redefining the genre though. These tracks could be the basis of a good live performance, that could help the band develop more of their own sound on the next album.

Recommended tracks: Warzone (full steam straight ahead rocker), Can You Hear Me Calling (hit qualities in the pop-heavyrock department), The Unknown (refreshing “backwards” rhythm-piece in the middle), Why (epic with nice vocals).