Classic – in every sense
It is helpful of Night Flight Orchestra to do our job for us. On the attached blurb with “Amber Electric” – which is album number three from the band – it says this: “We, the NIGHT FLIGHT ORCHESTRA, will continue to push the boundaries of classic rock; we will continue with the unnecessarily catchy choruses, the unnecessary solos, the atmospherics that no one will understand but us, and the female voices that seem to stem from your unconscious.”
Unfortunately, it is kinda frowned upon if you copy and paste the press pack and then put a score on the bottom, so it befalls MV to write something better than that about “….Galactic”. The thing is, we can’t.
What we can say without fear of contradiction is that it is the best album since Björn Strid decided Soilwork was all very well but he really, really wanted to be in a 70s-rock band if no one minded. We can also say, with a fair degree of certainty, that “Amber Galactic” might just be one of the rock records of the year.
To call this unashamed hard rock does it a disservice. Christ, it positively revels in being the biggest of rock, and moreover, it is resolutely of the opinion that the concept of less is more is a bag of bollocks.
Rather, it kicks off with the unfeasibly enormous “Midnight Flyer”, which as well as having the best first line in years “I’m not leaving, I’m just going somewhere else” has a chorus that brings new meaning to the word “soaring” and harmonies that would make Queen blush, before topping the lot with a twin guitar solo that is on the Maiden side of Thin Lizzy. For clarification, that makes it awesome.
It’s in good company.
“Star Of Rio” is like Def Leppard before they went shite, while “Gemini” is a fearsomely ambitious throbber of a thing, with Richard Larsson’s wonderful keyboard work to the fore.
Better still, is “Sad State Of Affairs” which combines a Stones-y David Andersson riff (the guitarist who has been Strid’s right hand man in NiFO since the start plays the axe slinger role to perfection here) with a seemingly genuine desire to be Supertramp. To that end “Jennie” is a glorious power ballad that wouldn’t be out of place on a 10CC album.
A record, it seems, where no idea was a bad one, takes a trip into funky drenched soul for the superb “Domino” and “Josephine” would happily be ELO if it was allowed.
Those “female voices that come from the unconscious” are all over many of the songs here, but are never better than on “Space Whisperer” which up’s the heaviness – but only a notch – as Strid channels some Russell Allen vocals from some long-lost Symphony X record.
The whiff of classic AOR is never too far away on “Amber Electric” but it becomes rather overt on “Something Mysterious”, the likes of which don’t get made anymore, but really should be.
Even for a record this effortlessly epic, the concluding “Saturn In Velvet” breaks new ground, and is almost like what Dream Theater would be if they’d walked a classic rock path instead of a prog one.
On the aforementioned press release it claims that Strid has just come out of Lou Gramm rehab. Now it is a longstanding belief of MV’s that Foreigner are amongst the worst bands on the planet and as such mere mention of them should lose a mark. That said, “Amber Galactic” is so good we’ll forgive even that.
Indeed, if we might be so bold, and if you really want to see what love is (see what we did there?) get your hands on this, because it’s out of this world.
Rating 9/10
