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Musiv Review:
PRIOR PARK 'Welcome to Prior Park' (INDEPENDENT)
California's Prior Park are a very classy aor hard rock band, their music has a late seventies - mid eighties feel, the songs are simple and grip their hooks into you from the very first play.
Vocally singer Jeff Heller reminds me of SAVANNAH's Earle Lord, NIGHTRANGER's Jack Blades, HARLAN CAGE's, Larry Greene and PASSION STREET's Rick Cartey, but I must point out that the band are in a class of their own and offer very fine and instantly memorable singalong songs that get your feet tapping.
Onto the songs, the opening duo of "Once You Get Started" and "Let Me Be The One" are two very catchy songs with some nice guitar work, the nice thing is that Prior Park's music is very real, the production is raw and stripped down which adds to the LIVE feel, which makes the songs stand proud and in your face, these two songs are a pleasure to listen to,
and the more you listen the more addictive they become, especially "Once You Get Started".
On the next track "Aim For The Heart" we get a mix of southern rock a'la KANSAS and aor a'la NIGHTRANGER, I love the lyrical part on the chorus where Jeff sings "GO FOR IT"!!, this is most addictive and very very fun to listen to thanks to the summery southern melodies and catchy versus.
"It's Gonna Take Some Time" drops in pace and this is where the HARLAN CAGE similairties fall into place, this is a moody piece, a sweet ballad of pure emotion. Prior Park rock things up a little with some cool guitar friendly americana on "Bring The Magic To Me", this is also a nice song with some beautiful keyboard action. Now then with "In My Arms Tonight" Prior Park deliver a very classy ballad, just close your eyes and let the song , melt your body with it's passion filled delivery, awesome!!
Now then, with "One Kind Of A Woman" the band take on an almost new direction, you could say that this is pure west coast aor, but i'd sooner say that this song leans towards power pop bands like TEARS FOR FEARS and WHAM!! etc..still good though, then we get a very very special song, this is called "The Castle", and wins top song award with ease, and what a magical song it is, a total change in musical structures, as it leans towards progressive aor/rock, perhaps something that RICHIE BLACKMORE, IAN GILLAN or maybe even BOB CATLEY would be happy to record, in fact Prior Park should sell this song to Now And Then Records, i'm sure they could make great use of it for someone like CATLEY or STUART SMITH, or better still sign the god damn band!!
The last song "Impressions", is a song that maybe you'd find ERIC JOHNSON, SPOCK'S BEARD or even GENESIS creating, it's another stunning song that shows a sense of diversitiy within Prior Parks fold. And that's the refreshing thing about this band, they are not afraid to go with their natural instincts, they could have played it safe and turned out and album full mid-paced hard rock, but instead the album leaves you wanting more, so the final verdict, is simple, great songs played by great musicans, need you ask for more dear readers? One of the greatest independent releases of recent months, watch the record labels fight over these guys!!! Contact: http://www.hellersongs.com

Rating: 9/10 (Review by Nicky Baldrian)