Band
Night Ranger
Title
Hole in the Sun
Type
LP/EP
Company
Frontiers
YOR
2008
Style
Hard Rock
Popular Reviews
| Night Ranger Hole in the Sun
Company: Frontiers Records Release: 2008 Reviewer: Nailer Genre: Hard Rock | Rating 3.5
|
Probably be enjoyed most by people who have already come of ageIf you delve into the Night Ranger catalog you find some great rock singles like "Don't Tell Me you Love me", "(You Can Still) Rock in America" and "When you Close Your Eyes" with its delightful lead melodies. They were lumped in with the hair bands, but never cultivated a glam image or sleaze image.
They became well known for the ballad "Sister Christian".
Then something happened and vocalist/bassist Jack Blades hooked up with Tommy Shaw and the Nuge and formed the hard rock supergroup Damned Yankees.
They became well known for the ballad "High Enough".
After 10 years of touring around various classic rock/AOR bands, Night Ranger is back with "Hole in the Sun" a fairly confident collection that shows an expected maturity level befitting their age. The songs, however, didn't light any major fires under my rear to the degree of the earlier rock hits, but "Whatever Happened", "Hole In The Sun", and "Revelation 4 AM" come close. Really it sounds like they didn't need to overtly hook their album and went about crafting some grown-up, listenable songs that for me was somewhat dulled by the bottom-heavy production. I did really enjoy the extra acoustic tracks.
Hole In The Sun will probably be enjoyed most by people who have already come of age since Night Ranger is still into relationship and rocker songs, but with an older approach. Any rough edges that may have been a part of their sound are now fairly smoothed.
Maybe they can release the ballad "There Is Life" and become more known to another generation?