SKAGARACK, one of the most beloved ’80s Scandinavian AOR / Melodic Rock acts is back with a new album titled “Heart And Soul“. In one way or another, vocalist Torben Schmidt kept the Skagarack alive, and now armed with new songs and others written decades agos, is back with new musicians.
In 2020 Skagarack got some gigs offered. When the group started rehearsing for the gigs, it didn’t take long before the band’s classic songs sounded pretty much relevant like it did back then. And the audience loved the band’s live performance.
So this obviously got them inspired, and Torben started writing new songs. The ”Heart And Soul” album consists of a mixed bag of songs written over the last 2-3 years plus some ’80s ideas and recorded whenever there was time and inspiration, and without having any pressure at all.
After first listen ”Heart & Soul” manifests a thrilling return of a band that is closely connected to European AOR. The Danes are surely back in business and although everybody got older over time the music still sounds young at heart (& soul).
Twelve songs are part of this return and what fans get here is well-crafted melodic hard rock music that covers powerful half-ballads such as ‘Be With You Forever’ and rocking tunes like ‘Peace of Mind (To Have a Good Time)’.
Also ‘A Cool Damn Car’ shows a great blend of melody and rocking moments while the title track is a smoothly grooving tune, an ear-pleaser par excellence. ‘Cool to be Old School’ comes with a 70s vibe while ‘Ain’t Got Nothing to Lose’ is more classic rock, a tune with a bluesy vibe and the same goes for ‘So Right’, before ‘Anymore’ closes the book on ”Heart & Soul” in a gently swinging fashion.
”Heart And Soul” is a fine example of well polished and written melodic hard rock. Skagarack 2023 sound and feels more mature, more ‘classic rock’ – some kind of the same evolution EUROPE did over the years.
It’s a very good, complete comeback album.
Highly Recommended
01 Give It
02 Peace Of Mind (To Have A Good Time)
03 A Cool Damn Car
04 Heart And Soul
05 Talkin’ Bout Jesus
06 Changingвф
07 Cool To Be Old School
08 Be With You Forever
09 Where Have You Been
10 Ain’t Got Nothing To Lose
11 So Right
12 Anymore
Torben Schmidt (Vocals, Bass, Keyboards)
Jan Petersen (Guitars)
Dennis Pedersen, Lars Daugaard, Mattias IA Eklundh (Drums)
Skagarack – Heart And Soul 2023
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