Italy are often in the habit of being pretty quiet on the AOR side of things but then all of a sudden  shoot another barrel-load of brilliant new melodic talent our way.

 

Milano quintet Earth For Sale have something quite big to sell that might actually knock you off the face of our beloved blue and green globe. It's called their debut album and does it belt or what?

Diving in with the title opener and then onto Survivor flavoured 'Wild is My Heart' the quality is promising not to drop. Tangy guitar work in the early Tyketto/Diving For Pearls vein opens 'Life' before the beast of an AOR number lying behind, attacks through the bars. Brooding ballad 'Psycho Love' is the angriest sounding cut without this band losing their thread and where the keyboards from Stefano Brusa weave their toughest loom, even if I'm initially curved off by the closing distortions.

 

Sassy blues bopper 'Alive' is a more stompier revisit to 'Reset's style and a stringent live favourite. 'One Light Year' is another stand out with a weighty likeness to early Giant to start before soaring into a huge sky-slicing chorus that showcases Silvia Reale's vocal majesty. Ballad time comes again with' Tango', a piano tinged track with a smeltering seventies-style progressive build up, and a crafty little bite of accordion near to the end. 'Guinevere', the most modern flavoured number of the eleven, is a stampy driving guitar based number built on a treble-step progressive base and while a strong track will be the least instant for a laid-back play. It is made to stick out twice as much as a sore thumb by 'Sky's Falling Down' which shoots right back to the sleek melodic rock that we came in with at the start.

 

The momentum is sustained along with the gracious solo bend by guitarist Marco Vecchio that glides into 'Amnesia' which I have to admit will be one of the hardest songs to forget from this selection, with another chorus that carries you above the town at night. 'The Night When You Love Me' is a modernised melodic rock ballad to round the set off, exhibiting eevery individual members talent on the record with bassist Giovanni Massari marking his groove through amidst the mighty guitar wall and Silvia's once again undying choral dynamic. Coming up fast without warning, Earth For Sale steer their musical submarine straight and honestly with a nuclear melodic rock payload set to detonate both above surface and below.

 

With all hope they will steer it right round European shores and across to the UK stages....at some stage as this is one we did not see approaching.