TThis is not the new CD of the American band AUTOGRAPH. This is the CD ‘Tear down the border’ of the Russian(!) A.O.R.(!!)- band that was released in 1991. The CD was very hard to get and since last year the CD has been available in the Western-Europian countries. The CD has been well-produced by Robert Duffey and co-produced by Ted Bishop. These are 2 Americans and Bizarre/Straight (the recordlabel of Avtograf) is an American recordlabel which is settled in Hollywood.

Although the A.O.R. sounds very good and professional, I must unfortunately inform you that there is a saxophonist in the band,he’s called Sergei Masayev. He is disturbing a lot of songs with his irritating saxsolo's. Without that Sax this band would be fantastic. The other 5 members of the band are Leonio Guthin (bass), Arthur Berhut (vocals), Ruslan Valonen (keyboards), Alex Sithovetshy (guitar) and Victor Mihhalin (drums).

There are 10 tracks on the CD with a melodic rock/ AOR-sound that is in the style of BOULEVARD, JOJO, DAYTONA... The 2 best songs are definitely “One step away” and “Why can’t you stay” which are 2 uptempo AOR/FM-rockers a la early FM, SIGNAL, 2 fantastic songs and no sax in these songs.

The other 8 songs are also very good,but mostly disturbed by a sax,still tracks like “Coming back to find you” (semi-aor-ballad), “Tear down the border” (semi-aor-ballad) and “How can I call it love” (AOR-ballad) are fine to hear and I can recommend this band to all the fans of bands like STRANGEWAYS,early FM,ROXUS ... The only thing is that a few times you will hear a sax. Oh yeah,there are 2 more songs that haven’t a sax,these are the songs “Play with fire” and “Judgement day”, but these 2 rockers are nothing special unfortunately.

I haven’t got a clue if AVTOGRAF still exist. Who knows?

(Points: 8.0 out of 10)