Forgotten Gems-Arabia-1001 Nights

Having been released in 2001 this album isn't quite as old as many of the other albums we feature in this segment. However it certainly is forgotten or just overlooked, but more importantly it really is a gem. I believe I won something form a seller on eBay like 7-8 years ago and saw this CD going from the seller for a buck with no bids on it so I picked it up too hoping the music would be as good as the album cover. This is an album that either came out too late or too early depending on how you look it. Too late in that the style here was first popular around the late to mid 80's so they were too late for that. However 80's hard rock has seen a slight resurgence in recent years that wasn't quite as big back 11 years ago when this album came out.So first who were these guys? The only two guys you may have known from other work are drummer Bobby Marks (Keel, Scarecrow and others) vocalist John Blaze also of Scarecrow. The sound here hard rock/melodic metal along the lines of Whitesnake, Blue Murder and Dokken although there are some AOR touches too. Blaze's vocals are wonderful, the kind of marvelous pipes this style of music really needs to make it stand out. The music is very much together and catchy. It's an album where you hear it wonder why you didn't hear of these guys sooner? I would guess part of the reason for that is the one I mentioned above. They probably didn't get a great deal of noticed 11 years ago, but it's worth tracking down now. Fans of this style will likely take to this album right away. These guys did knock out a second album just last year with only Blaze returning from the first album. I have not heard that one, but did read in one source that it had more of a modern rock sound than "1001 Nights".