LoReLey – Here We Are Again (Album Review)

Never heard of this band, so I looked up their bio which indicates born in France in 1981 and located in Spain since 1992, yet influenced by Mr. Big, Extreme, Whitesnake…the timeline seems odd to me. No matter, let’s spin the first song which is the title track. Odder still! Not sure I can continue with this prog rock sound that is not making my ears smile. Onto “Looking Away” it is. How do you go from that to that? Drastic difference and much better. As I progress through the songs on the release the sound regresses for me. Maybe if you are into the prog rock side of things this is for you.

The band is comprised of Franck Ronin on vocals, Francisco Zahonero on guitar, Roberto Tolsa on drums, Gilbert Romero on bass and Hector Mancheno on keyboards. It is quite a range of sounds from late 60’s rock to late 90’s rock. Their bio also states they take influence from Queen/Saga/Rush which I can hear much more. While as I said this is not quite for me I can hear the solid musicianship throughout. It seems they have a following on the European circuit as well. This is a release I may have to revisit as well, I generally don’t give up on bands after the first listen and come back to it later, call me moody. Will give you an update in the future if I need to eat some crow and admit this makes my ears smile. You never know, these guys say they have been around 31 years although this release is coming off of several years of inactivity.