Opening with 'Turning Water Into Wine', straight away the influence is there. I guess every band of this genre is influenced from the top down; Bon Jovi and Journey you can hear but this is a great hooky song, great album opener and well deserved 'classic' AOR song.

This album is heavier than its AOR tag would lead you to believe and this is proved with 'Rock This Town', sounding a cross between Giant and The Storm. 'Play The Game' gets back to the lighter side of things; again, great hook and wonderful melody that charms the birds from the trees and rabbits from the forest.

Apparently enjoying somewhat of a revival in the UK due to the Firefest festival, and rightly deserved, Bad Habit have produced a big sounding album that, in this day and age, can't be easy on the budgets of the smaller labels. But Bad Habit has managed to pull off one decent song after another.

Bax Fehling sings better when he's not trying too hard. His voice can soar as shown in 'Heart Of Mine'. 'A Lot To Learn' demonstrates how much Hal Marabel is fan of Dan Huff of Giant - the guitar tone is exact and that's fine by me. 'Rowena' could almost be Eurovision so a little lighter than others here. 'Lost Without You' is a great mid tempo song with more hooks than a butcher's shop window. 'Hunger' (unfortunately not the King Kobra classic) follows. 'Winner Takes All' comes at you with the most parptastic keyboard intro Europe would be proud of. 'Everytime I See You' opens with a kind of sequencer that 21 Guns used to such great effect on the 'Salute' album and it's a wonderful soaring ballad. 'Timeless' is also worth mentioning as the other great ballad from the album. 'Sad But True' is a great stomper worth a mention. 'Surrender', the third ballad of the album is possibly the best.

After scanning the blurb that comes with this album it appears this is a kind of 'Best Of' affair packed with extras, taking the best of the previously released albums, four of them I think, with two of those for major labels.

Fans of Gotthard and Giant will not be disappointed by this album. Excellent AOR executed in a production that is spot on. If you have nothing by this band you should definitely own this to begin with and then track down the previous releases.

A Blakout rating of 76.1 FM

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