Land Of Tales are a four piece band from Finland and have just released this debut album through Frontiers. I didn’t get any info on the band with my review copy but having a hunt on the internet I’ve found out that they’ve been going for a couple of years, have fan clubs in various countries round the world and a healthy fan base on Myspace. They say they play AOR music with BIG choruses and obviously Frontiers believe them.

Listening to the album however leaves me wondering what all the fuss is about. This is the sort of bland low budget AOR by numbers that gives the genre a bad name. The playing is ok and in particular Kristian’s guitar is pretty good in places but the production is underwhelming and the keyboards are never lush enough or the choruses big enough to hold your attention. The song writing is  at best unremarkable as well with “All The Same” and “Right As Rain” having enough of a melody to raise the standard a bit but there’s nothing else here to remember. To cap it all guitarist Kristian doubles up as the lead singer and he simply doesn’t have a strong enough voice for this kind of music. Many AOR bands have singers who can carry a weak song along and give it some class and impetus but the vocals here sound strained, limited and lacking in quality. Unusually for an act from Finland there’s a bit of an accent that comes through-normally these guys speak better English than I do! 

It’s extremely disappointing to me that Frontiers are releasing albums of as poor quality as this given their status as one of the most well known of the specialist AOR labels. I don’t understand why they were signed or how they have built up a fan base and I highly recommend any AOR fans to listen before they buy!

Ian Sutherland