CD-Review: NIVA - "Incremental IV"

When it comes to quality AOR music, NIVA was a huge surprise to me in 2013. "Magnitude" was an all-inclusive package for each Melodic Rock fan and just one year later singer and songwriter Tony Niva presents us his follow-up "Incremental IV" on August 29th. You know, I'm always a bit skeptical if music is released in such a short period of time ( take a look at the new Avalaon) and so I didn't know what I should think about the new effort.

Album Of The Year 2013: # 15 - 11

Hey folks,

the time has finally arrived. Today I'll start my most important countdown: my album of the year ranking. As I said before, it was an incredible year and every record on this list deserves it to be mentioned there. But before I start I want to clarify some things - just to ensure that nobody is irritated. There are some albums on a higher position, although I gave them once a lower rating. This is for one reason only: time. If I write a review I can give the album a few spins and I also have to be a bit more objective, but I don't have the time to see if an album really grows on me - and this is something some albums did over the last months. These are the ones, which found their way back into my cd-player again and again. So, while choosing the order of this ranking I haven't paid attention to my reviews. It was more a choice from the heart, if you want so. Please keep that in mind. But if you want to talk about numbers I can promise you one thing: every album, which ended up on that list, has at least a review-score from eight out of ten. All the other records didn't made it.  Enough with the talking - here is the first part from the 15 best albums in 2013!

Song Of The Year 2013: # 15 - 11

Hey friends,

today I want to start my first countdown of this year. So before I'll show you my album of the year list (the most interesting thing for you, I think) I present you my personal song of the year list, starting with # 15 to 11.
I can tell you one thing: it was very hard for me to select 15 songs from the mass of great records this year. To my surprise many ballads made it in that list. Maybe because I was in that mood - don't really know. Ok, I always loved the big rock ballads from the 80's and I think you'll see that tendency in this list. So, let's get right into it!

CD-Review: Niva - "Magnitude"

What have Swedish Erotica, Axia or Oxygen in common? They are all bands from Sweden and Tony Niva was part of them. After two solo records he released his third effort "Magnitude" some days ago. It's music from Sweden, so what can we expect? Right, AOR and Melodic Rock with big melodies, tons of hooks and cliches. Here we go!