VELVET THUNDER

The latest addition to the ever expanding list of fine Swedish hard hitting melodic rock bands is Winding Road which only began life in 2018 and this self-titled album is their very mature and perfectly balanced debut. The two founding and well established musicians Magnus Åkerlund (Blender) and Jan Hedlund (Coastline, Eagle Down) got together with a remit to write songs and form a melodic rock band which was a genre they were both very keen to explore. It seems the song writing process was natural and easy so they set about forming the band and brought in Jonas Tyskhagen on vocals with Åkerlund on guitar, bass, Keyboards, backing vocals and Hedlund on drums, keyboards and backing vocals.

The key feature of this band is that they are all friends with Tyskhagen (Incardine,Soxity) being a perfect choice for them with a soulful blues driven voice a little in the David Coverdale mold and they have even engaged another old friend in Fredrik Folkare to add additional guitar work. They work perfectly as a team and it feels like they have been together forever as this is one hell of a slick and smooth machine. The wonderful vocals of Tyskhagen immediately command your attention and give the band that special transatlantic feel that will always add to their popularity in the AOR/melodic rock arena. Add to this the truly inspired guitar and ever so smooth keyboard work and you have a band with a vibe similar to the likes of Europe and Asia as well as the more recent Swedish bands like Perfect Plan and Creye.

This is a perfect slice of near perfect AOR being full of radio friendly anthemic rock songs and crammed to the brim with hooks and divine vocal harmonies. A casual listener would readily assume that the band were old stagers and this was album 5 or 6 in a successful career which makes it all the more remarkable that they have produced such an all round and perfect AOR release at the first time of asking. In truth, Winding Road has it all with fabulous and very accessible songs and superb musicians playing in complete harmony with a vocalist destined for stardom.

If you are into classic AOR like Toto and, yes, I’ll even mention Journey then you really need to check this band out as this is a first rate rock album that deserves your attention.