White Sister- S/T

No, I am not making this band name up. These guys did two albums in the mid-80's and generally got some good reviews. I saw the band name in a catalog called Metal Disc probably 20 years ago and wondered what they were like. I bought it recently for a decent price and gave it a listen. If an 80's band had a full time keyboard player then you could probably guess they would be kind of on the light side of hard rock and White Sister fall into that category. They have split vocal duties as the bass player and keyboard player each sing lead on five tracks. This album was done in 1984 and there is a big Journey influence with a lot of melodies and in your face keyboards. There are a number of nice guitar riffs as well from Rick Chaddock who would later form Tatoo Rodeo. The guitar parts tend to remind me of Dokken from say Under lock and key. My biggest problem with the album is that it's just not that memorbale. They are good musicians, but the writing is overall just very plain. The songs tend to wander a little bit instead of flowing. The album was produced by Greg Guiffria (Angel, House of Lords and Guiffria) and he is also credited with additional keyboards as if it needed additional keyboards. The keys are a bit too far in the foreground for my tastes, but keyboard player Garri Brandon is a better singer than bass player Dennis Chruchill. Brandon definitely has a rougher more rock sounding voice. Not as good as I had hoped, but decent enough. I am always thrilled to find out what some barely known 80's hard rock band sounded like. That's just me I guess, but I may have some more short reviews of obscure and not so obscure albums coming soon.