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Newman: Aerial
Newman - Aerial CD Album Review

Newman: Aerial

Melodic Hard Rock/AOR
4.0/5.0

With Aerial singer and songwriter Steven Newman, and his eponymous band Newman, will enter their third decade of creating music. Over the past twenty years the band has delivered ten studio albums, toured often, garnered many fans, and pleased music critics alike. Aerial should be no exception to either base.

Newman Band Photo

Newman

If you're unfamiliar with Steve and Newman, he and the band create and play classic melodic hard rock, ala the Eighties, sometimes with a metal edge, yet always presented in an AOR wrapper. If you're a fan of the genre those are code words for certain essential music elements in song arrangements. (Warning grammar geeks: incomplete sentence to follow.) Like large harmony and melodies whether by guitar lines or vocal arrangements. Or sizzling guitar solos that highlight each song. Or a toe-tapping rhythm and groove from from the rhythm section. Also, Newman drops in a flavorful accent of keyboards, notable in the piano parts. Additionally, the songs are loaded with hooks in the aforementioned melodies, but also in the catchy refrains. Newman himself has a melodic voice, both strong and smooth. There's no caustic aggressiveness or unnecessary straining in his vocal presence. All these things are the classic elements for the perfect AOR melodic hard rock storm, and Newman whips up a hurricane of the same. (Apologies to those folks taking a beat down from this season's nasty hurricanes.)

For the songs, all the aforementioned things will be self-evident. For a more heavier vibe, that slight metal edge, look to Fear Of Flying, High Tonight, or the bold riffs and brisk pacing of Always Stranger. For more of an AOR feeling, you might find it more prominent within Life To Remember, Vertigo, or Nothing Left where the brisk riffs are tempered by slight keyboards and large vocal arrangements. But mostly, everything here rocks, even if there are mellow breakdowns within songs, and the guitar solos are killer.

If you like your classic melodic hard rock a bit heavier, with a metal edge, yet still AOR accessible, you will appreciate Newman's Aerial It's another strong release for the band. Recommended.



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The Bottom Line

If you like your classic melodic hard rock a bit heavier, with a metal edge, yet still AOR accessible, you will appreciate Newman's Aerial The album is another strong release for the band. Recommended.

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