The best releases in the practically empty wasteland during the 90's were most probably by a band known as The Storm, who were considered an AOR supergroup because they featured Ross Valory, Steve Smith and Gregg Rolie (all them at the time ex-members of Journey). Their self-titled debut album even spawned the US Top 20 hit 'I've Got A Lot To Learn About Love'. Two Fires then is the present and the last two members of The Storm, namely signer Kevin Chalfant and guitarist Josh Ramos - joining them are Kenny Aronoff (Jon Bon Jovi, John Cougar) on drums, Willie Weeks on bass, Jim Peterik (Survivor, Pride of Lions - who also shares the same birthday as Dave 'The One And Only' Prince - fact fans) on keyboards - are back with album number two. Their debut album having blazed its way to us back in 2000 and was rightly highlighted as one of the best the genre had to offer that year.

So here we are 10 years later with their sophomore release, with tracks such as 'Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid' being co-written with none other than Neal Schon (HSAS, Journey) and Gregg Rolie. The quality of this release is unquestionable. It is literally the cream of the (AOR) crop.

When the ÜRHQ powers that be handed this album to me... I literally wept, as only a true AOR fan would have, receiving such a great new album. So straight on to the music... 'Is It Any Wonder' is such a great opening track that one may even be fooled into thinking that this was from a new Journey album, given the size of the sound on offer that when compared with 'Revelations' this album actually towers over it with ease, and that is just from the first song!   'Lost In The Song' makes the listener do just that, whilst the Schon/Rolie co-write 'Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid' is such a strong and emotional song that I dare any true man out there to admit otherwise when tears come to the fore. It simply has everything you could ever ask for in a song.

I could go on about each and every song on here in detail, but that would be a waste of your time, as what I'm trying to tell you is get off your butts, and get yourself down to a record store (remember them?) or click open another tab/browser window and pre-order this album. Its release date is 24^th September 2010 and could possibly be a contender for your album of the year lists!

Standout tracks for me then are 'Is It Any Wonder', 'Lost In The Song', 'Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid', 'Epic In The Night', 'Shattered Without You', 'Burning Bright', 'Hold On To Your Dream', 'Still In Love', 'Answer To My Prayer', 'Relentless' and 'All For One'. Yep, you guessed it - the whole fricking album! Delicious stuff !!!! 

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