Norway are four piece AOR band based in New Jersey in the US. The band released their debut album, 'Night Dreams' back in 1997 and on the strength of said album the band inked a deal with Now And Then/Frontiers for its follow up, 'Arrival' which was issued in 2000. Since then however things remained quiet on the Norway front until mid 2006 with the announcement the pending release of this, the band's third album.

Norway’s first two releases were chock full of high class AOR and Rising Up From The Ashes continues in very much a similar vein, unfortunately being let down by a somewhat less then perfect production job. When listening to the album, at what I call normal listening volumes, the record sounds like mush, with little definition between the instruments. However turn the volume up a notch or two and the instruments do tend to separate out to some degree.

Thanks to this production issues the ballads on the album sound the best, mainly due to the fact there are the most uncluttered songs on display. The acoustically led 'Only One I Need' and Won’t Let You Down' being particularly good efforts. Of the rockier numbers on offer 'Save Me', 'American Girl'  and 'Haunted' are all decent enough songs, let down only be the aforementioned mix and production issues

The problem, IMHO, lies in the fact the album was recorded by the band on a limited budget before being signed to a label ( I could be wrong). MTM then picked up this finished product for release with little, or no extra work being taken to iron out the sonic inconsistencies inherent on the record. Basically no matter how good the songs are, and the songs on this album aren’t bad,  people will not listen to them if they sound like crap and anybody who buys this album may very well hink twice before purchasing future material by the artist.

For a second opinion I passed the album over to a friend who happens to be a huge fan of the band's previous two albums. Whilst acknowledging the sound issues he did believe after four or five listens that " it's their best of the 3 releases. It seems a more mature album although without any change of style and can't really find a filler amongst it” On that basis 'Rising Up From The Ashes' is likely to find favour amongst those who are already fans of the band and who can get past the production issues to take in the songs fully. One can only hope that this doesn't affect Norway further down the line as that would be a real shame...

Let us know your views on 'Rising Up From The Ashes'

Track List

Save Me
Anything At All
Only One I Need
American Girl
The Power Of Gold
Since You’ve Been Gone
Tell Me
Won’t Let You Down
Haunted

Line UP

David Baldwin – Vocals/Keyboards
Jim Santos – Guitars/Keyboards
Joe Slattery – Bass
Marty Brasington – Drums