The re-union flood of 80's hard rocking
band seems to be infinite. It's time to dust off the
nice Swedish band Dalton. Together with
Europe and Treat, Dalton were for some years in the late 80s, one
of the big hard rock band to be reckoned
with in Sweden. The band, founded by
Treat drummer Mats Dahlberg and named
after his nickname Dalton. They put all
their cards on the prevailing trend in
the melodic hard rock and went 'all in'
with both image - specially made stage
clothes - and contagious light metal
with light-hearted choruses. The amount
of hairspray backstage before a gig
averaged nearly a year's supply of the
common man. Even Bon Jovi and Michael
Bolton released exclusively original
songs to the Swedish quartet, and the
wheels began to roll, but in the early
nineties grunge rock resulted in the death of
several bands from the 80's and Dalton
split up. They managed to release two
albums 'The Race Is On' and 'Injection'.
After the separation, Mats put all his
energy on the short-lived project,
Speedy Gonzales, together with the now
world-renowned guitarist Tommy Denander
and Therion's vocalist Thomas Vikström, but the
project did not survive the grunge era.
Now, after an eon of time, these
poodle rockers are back. Moreover, they
have been wise enough to hire one of the
genre's best producers; Erik Mårtensson,
the mastermind behind WET and Eclipse.
It steams of the good old 80's rock in
the strong opening track 'Ready Or Not'
and Bo Lindmark's voice has aged well like fine wine. It's grainy and rougher than
before and he sounds like the big voice
Biff Buford in Saxon. This is a comeback
with a big C in the front. All you
Death/Thrash metal fans may not
appreciate this, but fans melodic hard
rock of the 80's style will adore it.
Dalton has easy-listening
choruses and catchy guitar riffs as
their trademarks. Mats, Ola and Anders
handle the keys and rhythm section
perfectly and creates a solid foundation
for Leif and Bo. They pile up the radio friendly songs, one after the other and my favourite tunes
are: 'Ready Or Not', the smooth 'Don't Tell Me
Lies', the big party track 'Up & Down', groovy song
'Bad Love' and catchy '50/50'. I believe that they
have put much effort in the song writing and the
freshness in the tracks are very appealing to me. Dalton
doesn't seem to have any problems with
the members age and I hope that
Frontiers Records will continue to
support this Swedish band on their way
back to the charts. I have to mention
the cocky and cool closing track TGIF
(Thank God Its Friday), which is one of
all nice party songs on 'Pit Stop'.
All eleven songs are packed in a
flawless production by Erik Mårtensson.
I really hope to see Dalton on a big
stage next year. Maybe on one of Sweden
Rock Festival's scenes next summer? You
read it here first... Thanks for the
ride guys!
DALTON:
Bo Lindmark - lead vocals
Mats Dahlberg - drums, backing vocals
Anders Lindmark - bass, backing vocals
Leif Westfahl - lead guitar, backing
vocals
Ola Lindström - keyboards, backing
vocals
