DESTINATION: ALIVE (E)

Destination: Alive by the Swedish band Seven Wishes is classified as hard rock, but AOR or melodic metal could easily have been a correct description as well. The band went through a lot of troubles, line-up changes and haircuts to achieve their goal, which was to survive and make another solid album. The biography doesn’t state that the band's name has been derived from the album Seven Wishes by Night Ranger, but in fact this band and also Journey, Europe, Survivor and Dokken could be considered to be references. Pelle Anderson's clear voice - with lots of echoes though - somewhat like Steve Augeri (Journey, Tyketto) does justice to the powerful, catchy twelve songs. As can be expected Lennart Karlsson (drums) and Tony Westgärd (bass) are the solid foundation on which all the riffs are played by Toby Andersson, as well as his tasteful solos. The inevitable ballad is called Time To Say Goodbye. The rest of the compositions are catchy as mentioned but hardly original. In the first place this album - in my opinion - should not have been reviewed in a magazine about progressive rock, although I like this band’s music. Secondly, the problem is that there are so many bands making comparable music and then it becomes really difficult to differentiate between good, fair and just barely acceptable. Having read the awful history and all the pain these guys went through I ‘d like to give them a break! The promotional information doesn’t mention a keyboardist but surely orchestrations can be heard throughout the whole album.