Randy Smith was previously a member of the band 8084 who where an AOR/melodic rock band whose style echoed bands such as Nightranger, Journey & Honeymoon Suite. In 2006 Randy left the group and started working on material for this first solo album with Hirsh Gardner (ex New England drummer) and Alan Maquera.

 

I guess you would expect Randy's solo album to not be too much of a departure from 8084. However, Randy has decided to put 8084 to one side, and explore a more organic musical route.

 

The album opener, "Learning 2 Live", reminds me of the John Taglieri album that I reviewed a while back. Maybe that is just because that was another example of an AOR act updating their sound. After the uptempo start, Randy drops down a gear for "Bleed" which is one of the tracks that reminds me of latter day Bon Jovi. In fact, although the sound has a rawer edge than Bon Jovi and  adopts a more contemporary stance, I often thought about BJ and the way they have matured their sound as I listened to this album.  "Broken" is a mixture of old and new, where a few AOR tricks are in evidence when delivering the chorus. Similar comments apply to both "Can't Stop" and "Yesterday".

 

In one of my recent reviews I was talking about PC69 doing a cover of a Police song, and Sting & Co crop up again here as a reference point for "Somebody"."All My Life" is a gentle, but effective, slice of Americana that had me thinking of acts like Sister Hazel, but actually just as I was writing that I started to hear Journey during the chorus."Cold Outside" has a singer/songwriter rock meets pop vibe with perhaps a little Jayhawks thrown in. The guitars get turned up again for "Shelter Me". As you might expect from the title, "Cowboys", has a Bon Jovi meets Lynyrd Skynyrd playing a chilled out Neil Young country track feel. The title track is a mid-tempo track that also throws Tom Petty into the mixture I mentioned for the previous track.The album's closing track is a sparse ballad written for one of his children. It is steeped in emotion - you almost feel like an intruder on a private moment when listening. There is a bonus track, which unusually doesn't feature Randy, but features Keeghan Nolan doing her version of "Yesterday" on which the track takes on a definite country vibe.

 

Randy is to be commended for stepping out of his comfort zone and letting us tag along for the ride as he journeys from the sounds of the 80s to the present day. This is modern melodic rock music that builds upon the AOR of Randy's past.