CD Review: Seventh Key

Seventh Key's "Coming Out Party" Rocks Atlanta!

SEVENTH KEY
Live In Atlanta
(Locomotive Music)

Reviled by critics, ignored by radio and empty-v, mostly overlooked by stateside music lovers, there's a whole underground of music thriving out there that has nothing to do with celebrity headlines, punk rock attitude or even heavy metal grime. What I'm talking about, bucko, is what you call your "melodic hard rock," a time-traveling genre with its roots in the arena-rock '70s when musicians actually played their instruments and Pro Tools was a mere gleam in some pizza-eating programmer's eye. Melodic hard rock is what AOR became when it grew up and got wise to the ways of the world.

These new wave tone farmers throw together elements of British prog-rock (think Genesis, or Yes) with American hard rock influences (Kansas) and pop (Journey) to create an entirely new spin on the dino-rock sound that plodded from stadium to stadium during most of the '70s. Aside from the more obvious melodic qualities of the music, i.e. the tunes actually have an underlying melody instead of some label-exec's-chosen-producer's approximation of one, the players possess the same dedication to craft and technical virtuosity of their musical ancestors, a trait they have in common with their kissing cousins, those poor saps still plowing the prog-rock fields (or neo-prog, for you purists).

Although American audiences are mostly uninformed of this musical undercurrent, Europeans have gone ga-ga over it, especially the Italians, which have not one, but two record labels dedicated to releasing gems from both established brands like Thunder or Joe Lynn Turner as well as relative newcomers like Ten or Seventh Key.