I heard the first track on this album, 'Castles in the Sand', whilst listening to Steve Price show on ARFM. Being very impressed I searched the web and found  their website at www.walkthesky.com and after a few e-mails a copy of the bands debut duly landed on my doormat. Which, as an aside, is amazing that the American postal service got a CD to me from across the Atlantic in less than four days but the post office in this country regularly lose post in the ten mile journey from Steve’s house to mine! 

The band is built around main man  Rick Hunter-Martinez (Solider, Regime) and the songs, in the main, are tracks that were written for those bands and  are “just too good” to forget about - Very true Rick! This is an album for lovers of mid 80’s early 90’s American hard rock /AOR and as most the song’s date from this period you know what you’re going to get. Looking at my notes made whilst listening to it you can see why:-

Firehouse, Dokken, Touch, Poison, Queensryche, Warrant all spring to mind during the listening of this album but the way the songs are but together is great, unoriginal some might say, but I’ve enjoyed this album no end. 

The album opens with the aforementioned 'Castles in the Sand', with its Firehouse style intro and great guitar work from Rick and excellent vocals courtesy of Rob Bonstin. Next up is 'Lay It On the Line' which has very Queensryche inspired riffs, very “Eyes Of Stranger” at times, but the vocal accompaniment to the music is almost Glam in their style. 

Track three is either very brave or a very stupid idea. A cover of Touch’s 'Don’t’ You Know What Love Is'. Brave or stupid why, well the song has always featured big guitars but Mark Mangold's keyboards were intrinsically the key element of the sound in the original (IMO) and Walk The Sky have no keyboards. In hindsight it’s a brave move that just about comes off, although the band don’t quite have the vocal capabilities of Touch, (then again not many bands have four vocalists capable of singing lead) all the same the band make a good stab at the multi-layered vocals featured at the end of the track, although my head kept filling the missing keyboard parts in as well!  

'Snake Eyes' is more straight ahead track an almost boogie like number and this is followed by 'Always Remember', a power ballad that is reminiscent of Warrant circa 'I Saw Red' but with a soupcon of Shotgun Symphony thrown in for good measure. 'Face to Face' could be a Dokken out take on first listening to the intro and main riff but with vocals demonstrate a far greater range and dexterity  than Mr. Dokken has been able to manage in recent times. 'Make Up Your Mind' is a bluesy almost Hendrix style number, ( WHAT IS IT WITH GUITARISTS AND HENDRIX!) with a catchy chorus! it also has  a vibe that brings to mind early Black Crowes. 

'Touched By You' is similar in feel to 'We All Die Young' culled from the Rockstar soundtrack, but perhaps slightly bluesier in feel whereas 'Heart of Stone' Is very much a Randy Rhodes influenced song, just listen to that intro and tell me you don't agree, very Crazy Train and a prelude to a  great up-tempo rocker. What You Need is another of the bluesy style numbers that punctuate this album and then finally, t close out the CD we get  'Love Comes Down' which believe is or not is a balls out HEAVY METAL track. 

As stated earlier whilst offering nothing original, this album is great fun and features some good material that manages to stay in the memory long after playing. The CD was recorded at Mohair Productions Studios and has, in essence, a very live raw sound to it, so that the band should have no problem performing this stuff live and here it all works very well together.

Let us know your views on 'Walk The Sky'

Track List

Castles in the Sand
Lay It On the Line
Don’t You Know What Love Is
Snake Eyes
Always Remember
Face to Face
Make Up Your Mind
Touched By you
Heart of Stone
What You Need
Love Comes Down

Line Up

Rob Bonstin - Vocals
Rick Hunter-Martinez - Guitar/ vocals
Jeff Lamas - Drums
Tom Young - Bass