Although this guy released his only (?) album in 1989 on a major recordlabel, it seems like he never got a big response to his CD. I'm not saying the CD is sensational or anything, still I think there are some songs on his CD that are interesting to hear if you're into aor/poprock.

His vocals are not really impressive and quite a few times it sounds like Bruce Springsteen, but the music of Bernie Shanahan is much more aor based than his countryman. In fact, opener "Another lonely heart" is classic uptempo FM-rock/AOR with some great keys and a chorus that is very catchy. It's not the first time this song was recorded, because also MARTEE LEBOW recorded it on her album 'Love's a liar'. That version featured a horrible saxsolo, so I prefer this version of Bernie that has a great guitarsolo. Besides, he wrote the song himself. "Another lonely heart" is sounding a lot like REFUGEE.

"Hard luck & Heroes" moves into a much less interesting style, although this song is still reasonable to listen to. This song reminds me of the rock guys like TOM KIMMEL and BRIAN SPENCE used to bring us. The following two tracks are quite different. "Living a lie" is a poppy radio ballad and "Back to the field" takes us into Westcoast rock with some DANNY WILDE and Bruce Springsteen comparisons.

More Springsteen rock can be heard in the tracks "No place like home" and "Lost in the lights of Broadway". This is the wrong side of poprock. Bernie is better on tracks like "Pray for rain" (good semi aor ballad), "At the end of the day" (midtempo aor) and "The night is never long enough". This last one is a great piece of 80s aor/poprock and has a real 'movie-sound' comparable again to REFUGEE.

The CD of BERNIE SHANAHAN has a lot of different rock and pop directions. Most of the time Bernie is rocking, both in the good aor/rock style and in the weak Springsteen-rock style. If you're interested to take such a variety in material you can try this.

You can get a copy of the CD if you contact Robert Pancur from TARGET RECORDS at the following e-mail address: Pancur@pfaffenwinkel.de , I think he can help you getting a copy on CD probably.
 

(Points: 7.0 out of 10)