If we speak of “Forgotten Jewel”,then we can easily speak of the CD “Flames” of the American band UNDERFIRE, not to confuse with the other American UNDERFIRE that has recently released a fantastic CD on AOR Heaven . This CD “Flames” contains 14 tracks and a playing time of 60 minutes and is highly recommended to the fans of aor/ melodic hardrock.

First more about the line-up of the band which is Steve Baker on guitar/vocals, Joseph Shreve on bass, Mykal Hudson on drums,Dave Donate on guitar and Chip Mcgurer on vocals/keyboards. The band produced “Flames” themselves and they did a good job.

Now let’s talk about the music,opener “Too close to paradise” is a pure AOR-track,with beautiful keyboards and great choruses. “One way love” and “Loaded gun” are 2 good rockers,although “One way love” is sounding a lot like POISON.

Besides I must say that “White lies” has a piano-sound which makes it sound different and the choruses are very important in the song “Don’t fall in love”. Not everything is original, because we hear clear influences of BON JOVI and DANGER DANGER, but a track like “Flames of red,white&blue” sounds fantastic!

I don’t get it that this band has never been signed to a major recordlabel,but my review still is very positive! 
 

(Points: 9.0 out of 10/Review by Frank van Hoeve)