Review Summary: Pop rock/AOR by numbers. Not offensively bad, but neither something that will blow your mind.
Frontiers Records seems to be one of the biggest exporters of revival rock bands these days. Names like Crazy Lixx, Inglorious, Kee of Hearts or Phantom 5 are all promoted by this major record label, giving more opportunities for those nostalgic rock fans and metalheads who have a desire for new music but don’t want to check the most ''pretentious'' or complex stuff. Apparently this decade has been very kind to the melodic hard rock revival. What does this musical trend consist of? Simple, pick up your guitar and get back to the 80s. Depending on which groups of this movement you choose to listen to, you can either find glam metal tribute acts or bands mostly influenced by Aerosmith, Whitesnake, Guns ‘n’ Roses or Journey.
The Nights is part of this movement too, and possibly one of the poppiest and lightest bands of it. This Finnish band seems more than comfortable at paying tribute to the 80s sound and bands, and like many revival bands they are far from presenting something complex or innovative. That itself is not a big problem. The main drawback, unfortunately, comes to the songwriting. The production work is faultless, with everything sounding clean and polished, while the musicians, although not the quintessential example of virtuosos, offer a fairly decent and respectable performance in all the songs, but the songwriting is quite generic and leaves much to be desired. What do we have on this album? Imitations of Def Leppard, Warrant, Foreigner or Bon Jovi. Don’t get me wrong, that’s not the worst style in the world, but the idea of making a retro album goes beyond just choosing a specific style and performing it. In order to craft an enjoyable revival album, one needs to come up with enough ideas to make the music stand out in some way, with great riffs, vocal hooks, attractive melodies, etc. Simply put, when a band does a certain style, the style alone isn’t enough to guarantee an enjoyable record.
Alas, this is the main flaw of some revival groups, and
The Nights isn’t exempt from this. Not at all, at least. It’s an attempt at a modern version of a 80s melodic rock album, and while it doesn’t really fail at that purpose stylistically and none of the songs are outright bad or offensive, there aren’t many outstanding moments throughout its 47 minutes. The first songs may sound pleasant, but when the thing goes on and on and on in the same tone, and you notice that the guys are repeating the same formula all the time, it really gets tiring and overwhelming. The lyrics don’t help either: most of them deal about girls or love stories, and combined with the smooth, soft music, the songs can become a corny and cheesy experience for some. The one saving grace of this album may be the band’s good sense of melody. Instrumentally/vocally The Nights are very competent; the eight-minute "Elegy (You Should Be Here)" contains a fairly amount of energy and interesting keyboard/guitar parts to justify its length (undoubtedly one of the album’s highlights), while the initials "Welcome to the Show" and "Nothing But Love" offer a decent mix of heavy, metallic riffs with upbeat, happy melodies.
With all of this being said,
The Nights, as a whole, isn’t terrible, but its good moments can be counted on the fingers of one hand. While there are some snippets of instrumental prowess from the band in some tracks (the inclusion of an over-orchestrated synth track, "In a Blink of an Eye", looks interesting, and I wish that the dark keyboard parts of "Take Me to Heaven" could be transplanted elsewhere), the overall effect is one of mind-numbing boredom. If you have a craving for 80s melodic rock or are looking for an unpretentious record to have a good time, then listen to this. You can even find more memorable parts here than the reviewer could find. For the rest, this’ll be an average, pleasant but unspectacular effort.
