Outside of their native Holland, this band’s main claim to fame was having Arjen Anthony Lucassen (Ayreon) as the their main man and founder, and he was there up until the band split up in ’92. This album was released in ’88, and is pretty much standard hair metal with a European slant.
The opening track is a decent opening track and rocks hard. The next track, Code Of Honour, is slower and suffers from having a kid’s choir singing part of the chorus – it’s just ok. Rock N Roll Shower follows and has a stock party rock riff and is not a bad tune. Take Me To The Limit rips in with a killer riff and some double kicks, and then descends into standard rock territory. Engines tries to be Van Halen’s Hot For Teacher, and is a nice metal instrumental with Lucassen showing everyone how good he is as a guitar player. This music is a million miles away from what he does now.
Side 2 starts with Hear Me Out, and its back to glam city we go with big chants and everything. Women In The World has the big acoustic intro before a very Scorpions style rocker breaks out. Looks Of A Winner is the most American sounding of all the tracks – you can tell the market they were aiming for. Last track, Ain’t Gonna Take You Home, actually had me thinking they were going to break out into Doctor Doctor by UFO – until the big chorus kicked in and it’s definitely Friday night rock night crowd pleaser.
7/10 from The Grooveman.
