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Hardreams: Unbroken Promises
Hardreams: Unbroken Promises
Melodic Hard Rock/AOR
4.0/5.0
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Perris Records
by Craig Hartranft, 02.22.2013
It may be difficult to figure out what they were going after for their band name. Is it pronounced 'har-dreams' or 'hard-reams' or maybe you need too supply the extra 'd' for 'hard (d)reams.' You guess is as good as mine. One thing is easy to get and that's Hardreams music: pure melodic hard rock in the AOR style.
Hardreams:: one hand in pocket.
Unbroken Promises is the third album for this Barcelona based band, and it's a pretty good one. Actually, it's rather smooth stuff, not quite the Westcoast style but neither is it straight 'hard' rock. Though Hardreams can get edgier as on Cross the Line, Goin' Fast, and A High Mountain to Climb.
Mostly, Unbroken Promises leans heavily on the AOR wrapper to allow their songs to have good melodies, harmonies and hooks. In this sense, Hardreams isn't reinventing the melodic rock wheel. Songs like Count on Me, It's Only Love, or Woman in Black are simply fundamental AOR melodic rock. No muss, no fuss. Hardreams gets the genre and does it quite well. That's not to say this is average material, but rather what you expect when you think AOR melodic rock.
The real wild card here is the finishing song, All and Now, a slow burning ballad sounding like a modern torch song. It's AOR for sure, and could be called a slow dance song. It reminds of a song that the cover band at a late Seventies high school dance would have in their set for all the teenage lovers to grind to. In toto, Hardreams' Unbroken Promises is solid and entertaining melodic rock.
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Hardreams' Unbroken Promises is solid and entertaining melodic rock in the AOR style and tradition.
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