“Hunting Shadows” is the fifth album to be released by Last Autumn’s Dream and the fourth to feature the current Swedish/German line up of Mikael Erlandsson on vocals,  Andy Malecek (ex Fair Warning) on guitar and the Talisman rhythm section of bassist Marcel Jacob and drummer Jamie Borger. This stability, combined with some excellent song writing and significant involvement of the band members in production, has produced an album of pure melodic rock genius.

The opening song, “Strange Operation”, grabs the listener right from the punchy opening chord, leads you into Erlandsson’s vocal telling the story of people meeting across divides in a war torn Warsaw of 1942, culminating in a great guitar solo from Malecek. It is also a brave choice to put what is arguably the strongest song on the album up first but in truth, this simply shows how confident the band are in their new material.

“Rainbow Sky” and “My Alibi” maintain the high tempo, both being pleasant, feel good songs that have lots of sing along potential and also nicely demonstrate a subtle difference in the sound the band has adopted for this album. Whilst keyboards remain an important ingredient, they have less of a synthesised feel than in the past, with piano being used very effectively throughout the entire album.  Mickael Erlandsson’s vocal is also less polished than in the previous studio efforts and many of the songs benefit greatly from the raspier style he uses so well on the live stage.

These qualities have no better demonstration than on the only ballad to appear on the album, “I’m Not Supposed To Love You Anymore”.  I don't always find that ballads make a great impression but this is a wonderfully structured song, from the piano and guitar based opening, to the perfectly executed vocal and powerful guitar solo. It tells the story of losing someone then struggling to let go, even though you know it’s over. The sentiment may have been covered before but few bands have done it this well, even the masters like Journey.

Last Autumn’s Dream have come up with an album that is likely to appeal to a wider audience than anything they have done previously and songs such as “War Of Your Worlds” or “Serenity” would have sat well on the last Europe album and Jon Bon Jovi would have been more than happy if he had written “Save Our Love”.

Overall the quality of “Hunting Shadows” plays heavily on this being a complete band effort and the powerful vocals and guitar would have been nothing without the somewhat heavier rhythm lines provided by Jacob and Borger where required. The end result is the bands best album to date, indeed it is one that other bands from this genre will struggle to surpass this year.

Let us know your views on Hunting Shadows

Track Listing

Strange Operation
Rainbow Sky
My Alibi
I’m Not Supposed To Love You Anymore
Lost In Moscow
R U Ready To Rock N’ Roll
Serenity
War Of Your Worlds
Save Our Love
Every Beat Of My Heart
Overnight Sensation

Line Up

Mikael Erlandsson - Vocals/Keyboards
Andy Maleck - Guitars
Marcel Jacob - Bass
Jamie Borger - Drums