If you type in
Steve Overland to the search box above, you’ll
rapidly find out that’s he highly thought of here at HRH. As you
may already know Overland originally made his name with FM who
recently reformed for the first time in over a decade to
play Firefest
IV, a reformation that will lead to a new album and a live
DVD being released in not too distant future.This album however was written and
recorded before FM got back together and has been delayed by
the availability of Tommy Newton (responsible for mixing the
album) amongst other things. Breakaway is actually being marketed
by the label as Steve Overland’s first solo
album but in doing so that would be to discount the two SO! albums
recorded after the break up of FM in the 90's.
If I told you that Steve Overland had audition
for Toto and I had the tapes, you would be interested wouldn't you? Well thanks to Anders Rydholm,
the man behind last year's excellent code album who
provides the musical background here and Overland's own lyrics and melodies
what we have here is an album
Toto could easily have recorded. In fact the whole album comes across as
a heavier Toto crossed with FM. Having heard title track
Breakaway last year this reviewer was expecting big things
from the
album and, whilst musically and sonically excellent, it
doesn't quite live up to those expectations
Steve Overland is a man who could sing the
proverbial phone book
and still make it sound good and even on the worst song on here, Lost
In Paradise, he proves to be head and shoulders above most other
vocalists doing the rounds today, but
it could all have been so much better. Break Away,
Like A River and particularly After The Fire with its string
section opening and musical left turn are all worth the
purchase price on their own but elsewhere it the album is
actually less than a sum of it's parts. OK perhaps that
isn't quite fair and, if this had been anyone other than
Overland then good enough may have been just that, good
enough. However with Overland singing I
was expecting massive things from this album and it
falls just that little bit short. Breakaway is a good album
when I hoped it would have been
a superlative one, expectations are a bugger.....
Dougie
