Fans of AOR / Melodic Rock has a
new sweet candy bar to chew on. Seven
is a South African/British AOR group
that was working with the legendary John
Parr way back in the early 90s. They
released a few singles, but their album
was never completed before the band was
dropped from their label deal. Seven is
delivering some classy and high class
AOR songs on this shining album. The
songs have been unfinished and unreleased
for 15 or so years until Escape Music
convinced the guys to re-record the
songs.
The band is fronted by the
excellent vocalist Mick Devine and the
album is completely smacked with very
melodic songs and is packed in an
flawless production by the Swedish
guitarist and producer Lars Chris. Very
mature and grown-up rock sound with an
silky and clear keyboard sound and when
we talk about the keyboards.... What an
impressive list of guest keyboard
players they have. I'm forced to say
that this is one of the "softest" rock
albums I have reviewed on this site, but
I know that we got readers who like this
kind of gentle melodic rock. If you like
bands like: Work of Art, Eclipse,
Talisman, Foreigner, Journey, Asia,
Styx, Toto, Street Talk or Heart you
won't be disappointed with Sevens
debut disc.
"7" is filled with cracking 80s
classic melodic rock tunes in an fresh
and clear production and I can't find
any filler songs or so-so tracks. I'm
very happy that Escape Music manage to
get these guys together again and made
this album available to the AOR
audience.
This is such an album, which can
be called timeless AOR and I will
probably be sitting in the retirement
home when I'm 75 and still love this...
Seven's line up:
Mick Devine – Lead Vocals
Keith Mcfarlane – Guitar, Vocals
Pat Davey- Bass, Vocals
Simon Lefevre – Keyboards, Vocals
Austin “Oz” Lane – Drums
Special guests
Lars Chris: Guitars
Mark Mangold: Keyboards
Adam Wakeman: Keyboards
Fredrick Bergh: Keyboards
Dig Digital: Keyboards
Tomas Coox: Piano and strings
arrangement
Fretless Bass: Shuji Matsumoto on
“Strangers”
Andy Loos: Bass
