CARE OF NIGHT: Love Equals War (A.O.R.): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

Sweden, its Baltic shores and the Gulf of Bothnia, its inland lakes and ice-covered mountains, its salmon and cranberry jam... and its hard rock bands, could we add so many of them that they are now a trademark. You know the main ones: Europe, Treat, Eclipse and Last Autumn's Dream, but did you have the opportunity to look at Care Of Night's first album called "Connected" in 2015? Surely not. So, AOR enthusiasts, it's time for you to take a catch-up class by taking the opportunity of the release of his little brother, a "Love Equals War" that we will dissect below.

It is true that AOR's groups can frequently be blamed for the softness of their words, the sanitized voices of their singers, the outdated choirs wrapping up the choruses, their metronomic drumming or their albums stuffed with fade and repetitive ballads, or all these arguments regroup. In short, some people say that AOR is not hard rock. These arguments cannot always be swept away with a scorn. It is true that we can sometimes blamethis sort of groups to adopt an asleep attitude that makes chloroform look exciting. But Care Of Night is not made of this wood.

Proof of this is in any case the energy developed on the three opening titles that are the eponymous piece and its successors, a "Your Perfection" that makes our head shake and shoulders and a "She Leads You On" endowed with good choirs without any outdated character - this is the case of all those who populate this opus. And then we say to ourselves, having reached the fourth composition, that it was too beautiful to be true because the linear and unoriginal ballad arrives, contemptuous that we are because a catchy rhythmic rise surprises us halfway through this "All I Got".

In the process, "Hit", the most muscular track of the album hits us, carried by a drum set that has nothing to envy to hard melodic combos, the diabolical cousins of the AOR bands. This is another characteristic of this "Love Equals War", the man with the chopsticks who officiates here is allergic to marshmallows. As for the keyboards, they are of course very present but they cannot be blamed for invading recklessly the space. If we talk about vocal organ, the man at the microphone is in harmony with his colleagues, equipped with iron vocal cords in a velvet veil, he knows how to perfectly adapt his voice to the tempo.

The middle of the work is less satisfying with two more classical pieces framing a ballad classic too this time. But the Swedes are back with two melodic tones that, as the end of the opus, make our epidermis shudder, listen to 'We Will Find A Way' and 'At Last' and you will understand what a good AOR means.

So here is a Swedish group to follow closely, one more you might say. But that the way it is, Sweden now has a UEHRA (Union of European Hard Rock Associations) index, which puts it at the forefront of the peoples of our continent who produce hard and melodic rock.
- Official website

CARE OF NIGHT

LOVE EQUALS WAR

AOR HEAVEN

A.O.R.