Loverboy-Rock 'n roll revival

Frontiers
2012

The download for this one popped a few weeks ago and I stepped around it like a piece of gum on the sidewalk. Briefly I considered tackling it, but decided against. A few hours after that decision I was at a grocery store that I only go to maybe twice a year. I walk in and the DJs are yacking, I start shopping and the first song they play next is Loverboy's "Lovin' every minute of it:. I took as an omen to review it whether it was good, bad or indifferent. I like some AOR, but to me Canada's Loverboy were never up on the A list like Journey and Foreigner. They were far more hit and miss and seemed to get weaker as the 80's progressed. I put all that aside when approaching this album. So what we get here is three originals and nine re-recordings of their more popular tunes. The three new songs are on first. The title track begins with a solid riff and sounds like it could have been around 1983 and I mean that in a good way. It's extremely tight and catchy, color me shocked. "No tomorrow" slowly make it's way on and they are in full ballad mode, but wait don't gag because they step around the sap for the most part and follow a steady path. If they'd done this one thirty years ago it would have been a radio staple. The last new song is "Heartbreaker" sounds like Loverboy taking their 80's sound into a more modern time (not quite today's time though). They follow a bouncing pace and this song flows so smoothly. There's kind of Bon Jovi vibe and the lyrics lack a little, but they push it ahead well enough to make it enjoyable even if it's kind of fluffy. Okay, so they sounded good on three tracks. Now they must be taking the easy road to fill out an album with re-recordings. Re-recordings are usually always poor versions of the originals and only a few brave bands try to mix it up and different takes on their classics that actually work, Well throw Loverboy in that majority and color me shocked again. The new versions are not all perfect, but they make them faithful enough to the originals yet they change up some tempos, solos and other parts enough to make it worth hearing these recordings. They put a 2012 spin on "Turn me loose", "Working for the weekend",  "The kid is hot tonight" and others plus it's quite well done. I was firmly expecting this album to be a tired old act going through the motions, but Loverboy proved me wrong. A very decent effort.

Labor day reviewathon count-2 down 8 to go 
Time left- three days, two hours and around forty-five minutes
*I need to review ten albums by the end of Labor Day or I have to listen to Warrant's Cherry Pie. (Come on, Mark knock out those reviews to avoid this fate).