PRIDE
PRIDE
Self-titled - Aor-fm 2008
SOLD OUT!
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BAND
Dan Kristiansson- vocals
Stefan Karlström- keyboards
Jonas Öhlund- guitar
Johan Agerberg- bass
Anders Henriksson- drums
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SONGS
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REVIEWS
GLORY DAZE
 8.5/10
 V
Being Swedish, it's easy to see where Pride drew inspiration from. At the time, Sweden was awash with great melodic hard rock/AOR bands. In Pride's case, bands such as Treat, Glory and Bad Habit could be considered reference points musically - their brand of keyboard based rock an ideal fit. The songs on this CD are made up of three different sessions:
1989 Single*
1990 Unreleased Single +
1990 7 Track Demo #
The lead single 'You're The Only One' has a very commercial flavor to it. The sound is in the same zone as Bad Habit. The change-up section for the solo spot is very nice!
The 1989 flipside 'Dreamer In The Night' is a faster paced affair which gallops along at a good clip. Comparisons to a less heavy-handed Dalton are in order here.
For a pure dose of AOR, Pride offer up the excellent 'Playing With Fire', which can be heard on Pride's MySpace page.
'Someone's Calling Your Name' continues that purists form of AOR, with some lovely keyboard layers tracking the guitars. It's typically Swedish and typically good.
'Turn It Up' is the first of the 1990 demos to appear. The band get a bit tougher on this track. Unfortunately the keyboard sequence which continually drives this song gets to be a tad annoying after a while.
'Good Intuition' chugs away in an anthemic way, kinda like Treat.
'Love Is Hard To Live With' is the band's first ballad and it's damned good. Swedish bands and ballads are usually 100% compatible, so I needn't say anything more that hasn't already been said on the subject. Enough said!
'Movin' On' is one of the better songs onboard, it's generally fast-paced with Glory like attributes. Choice cut.
There are lots of guitars on offer with 'Let It In', it has a big wall of keyboards underpinning it, with the occasional synth parp and a good chorus.
'Changin' is similar to 'Playing With Fire', the structure and arrangement has a familiar touch about it.
'Over The Guideline' finishes up the CD, initially a brooding mid-tempo affair, the band wind it up for the final section - which is a fast and furious close-out to the end.
In Summary
Despite the problems which seemed to beset this band from start to finish, they at least did the right thing and recorded material as a testament to their existence. Some excellent bands haven't even been able to do that much! Of interest, was the much talked about controversial cover for the 1989 single, which is shown on the CD cover jacket of this CD. Good to see a CD by this band out there in the public domain at long last. With great intrigue, we await the next instalment of AOR-FM Records with much interest!
George |
STRUTTER (Points: 8.5 out of 10)
Not to be confused with the UK Melodic Hard rock band, because this PRIDE came out of Sweden and was active between 1987 and 1991. In fact, I remember doing a story on them way back in the late 90s and owning most of the material (including the rare 45" single with sexy cover!), it is now for the
first time available on CD.
The same titled CD is a collection of singles and demos the band recorded about 20 years ago. It has been released by a new UK label called AOR FM RECORDS, a label based in Scotland, founded by a
good old friend of ours, namely BRUCE DONACHIE, who also wrote for us many years ago! Anyway, he has founded this great new label, which will focus on re-issuing old rare AOR/Melodic Rock, with PRIDE being their first release.
THRILLS is following soon and I am sure this label is gonna do some great things, as their first release looks and sounds very impressive. It seems like nowadays it is easier and more interesting to start a label doing re-issues than release new material and that might be indeed how the future looks like now, because new AOR material is almost completely in the hands of FRONTIERS RECORDS.
Re-issue labels pop up here and there and we welcome this AOR FM RECORDS. PRIDE played typical classic 80s Scandi Melodic Rock, TREAT being a very close comparison. Especially the first 4 songs "You're
the only one" (AOR ballad), "Dreamer in the night (uptempo AOR rocker) and the melodic rockers "Playing with fire" and "Someones calling your name" are songs one will absolutely love when being a fan of DAVINCI, DALTON, HARLOT, TINDRUM, TREAT, ALIEN, FATE and that kind of late 80s Scandi Melodic Rock (or European, because I can also mention the Dutch bands ZINATRA, EMERGENCY, LINE, FIRST AVENUE and such).
A rare piece here, one for the collector's among us, no doubt the limited run of 500 cds worldwide will be soldout in no time!
Available through: www.aor-fm.com
Gabor
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MELODIC.NET 3.5/5 
Many Swedish AOR bands never got longer than to record a single or demo in the 80s and Pride is one of them. But luckily the new AOR-label AOR-Fm records has given fans of Scandi AOR a chance to hear Pride. So don’t confuse this with the UK Pride, no this is the Swedish Pride that was around between 1988 and 1991. They just released one single in 1989 called Your The Only One. This is album that includes that single and another unreleased single from the same time and rest is filled out with demos from 1990. What we have here is pure 80s Scandi AOR in the same vein as Bad Habit, Da Vinci, Dalton and the list could go on. The sound of this CD is surprisingly good even if many of the songs are just demo version. They have manage to come up with a great sound. The first single Your The Only One is a strong Da Vinci kind of up-tempo rocker with fluffy keyboards with a nice harmony vocals in the chorus. I think the 2nd single that never saw the light of day is much better. The song I´m talking about is Playing With Fire and this is a fantastic AOR-song with layers of keyboards and a strong chorus in the best Bad Habit way. Another great rocker is Good Intuition with a nice chorus. Love Is Hard To Live With sound more like Us AOR and Bad English comes in mind. So if you into Scandi AOR then this can’t be missed and hurry up because this is released in limited copies. The guitarist Jonas Öhlund is doing AOR these days as well and you can read my review of his new band Linehouse in Melodic.net that has released a 3-track EP.
Juha Jarhula |
© Aor-fm 2008