Is there anyone out there who knows who Kurt Vereecke is? No? I could just imagine it. By contrast,
all of you certainly know Tommy Denander, Steve Newman, Daniel Flores and Jim Santos, and these wonderful musicians have collaborated with Kurt on his FROZEN RAIN project.

Kurt is from Belgium and the album with 12 tracks, released by the newly established German company Avenue Of Allies has a history that goes six years back. Actually, it was already in 1986 the name FROZEN RAIN appeared the first time, but the songs that Kurt wrote for this debut are written over a period of six years. Thanks to new technologies such as the Internet FROZEN RAIN got more and more media coverage in recent years. Now the debut album is here and lovers of pure AOR and melodic rock have a new name to add to their collection.

The first song "Waiting for you" makes clear why the people of Avenue Of Allies offered Kurt a contract and I can really understand it. Denander puts his special mark on the song and references to Radioactive are not far away. Also "Wire of love", a song with a great chorus and classic keyboard parts, "Lukather"-guitars and good singing of Johan Waem, belongs to the best tracks on the album. In addition to these two tracks I also prefer the songs "Little Angel", "Red light zone" and "On the run".

Also funny is that I, after having surfed around FROZEN RAIN's website, found out that I personally know one of the lyricists, namely Andy Flash, who lives in the same city as myself. Kurt had contact with him through www.melodicrock.com. Two songs have lyrics written by Andy Flash, namely "Wire of love" and "My heart believes it 's true". Andy is a real hard rock nerd in a positive sense, and you can visit his homepage www.andyflash.se. There you can read about all the concerts he has visited since 1985 and all the playlists from them.

FROZEN RAIN is what all the AOR fans will talk about in 2008, I am sure. Great songs and a completely fine production will elicit a little shout of joy. The Frozen Rain CD is a wonderful start for the new record label Avenue Of Allies. The cold rain will melt often in my car this summer and will bring coolness during my vacation!

Review by Roger

Rating: 8/10