Castro Valley, California native Bryan DALLAS (born Brian Hiner), also known in his origins as ‘Von Hiner‘ or simply ‘Dallas‘ released four years ago an amazing retro AOR / melodic rock album plenty of ’80s magic, like if it was 1988 when bands like Def Leppard, Firehouse, Winger, and Bon Jovi ruled the playlist around the world.
Dallas works as session songwriter / musician for others but also find time to record his own songs, and as many are doing these days, putting out standalone singles every three months or so..
Now under the moniker BRYAN DALLAS he just released “Complete Works 2020 to 2022 remastered”, an album compiling his songs from the last two years, most of them revised / remastered.
The material on “Complete Works 2020 to 2022 remastered” is less ‘bombastic’ in sound production approach than the previous album, more rock&pop in essence, yet pure ’80s to the bone. It’s a varied platter from rockers to ballads; there’s a couple a huge sounding tunes akin the first album, other songs heavy on keyboards, others acoustically filled.
Dallas has a really pleasant voice and he’s very good dropping a catchy riff. As said this recent material is more traditional in terms of production, not so over-processed guitar, drums more dry… I guess you get the picture.
It’s curious that some songs are only 2-minute long. Bryan said some time ago in an interview: ‘you don’t need to bore your audience; with less than 2 minutes and a half you can write a hit. The Beatles did it, and they started all”. There’s a couple of tracks here where you can use the skip button; Bryan released a Christmas EP past year and added some songs to this album. Not bad, but I prefer my ’80s sounding Dallas.
There’s different running order of “Complete Works 2020 to 2022 remastered” depending the digital retailer, but the number of songs are the same.
01 – Everybody Rock
02 – Motor Runnin’
03 – City Lights
04 – Invincible
05 – Quarantine Christmas
06 – All I Want For Christmas Is a Cadillac
07 – Photograph
08 – Fireworks
09 – My Heart
10 – Christmas In the Country
11 – Air I’m Breathin’
12 – So Good
13 – I Got A Feelin’
14 – Get Out Of My Head (bonus track)
Bryan Dallas – vocals, all instruments
Zac Curtis – additional drums
Bryan DALLAS – Complete Works 2020 to 2022 remastered (2022)
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