ELEKTRADRIVE – Big City XX Anniversary (2012)

ELEKTRADRIVE is one of the most significant Melodic Rock / AOR bands to emerge from Italy, perhaps the first to develop both genres in their homeland.
Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the album “Big City”, the group is re-releasing the CD with some extras.

At the very start in the early eighties the name of the band was Overdrive and they were a four-piece basically playing NWOBHM.
After being included in a couple of compilations and a debut single, they added keyboards to their sound and became Elektradrive, recording the debut in 1986.
But the band become widely appreciated (and toured internationally) with 1989’s ‘Due’, settling into a style that saw a combination of British AOR with Euro Melodic Rock, plenty of synths and driving guitars in the best Shy, Rescue or Zinatra tradition.

Elektradrive’s third album “Big City” was released by Italian label Dracma Records in 1993, the following year in Japan, and the mythical Long Island Records published it through Europe in 1995. All featured different artwork by the way.
Still retaining the Euro AOR / MR lineage, “Big City” adds some American sounds to the recipe, influenced by bands such as Extreme and the stylized Dokken in less degree.
We have very melodic numbers as “Rocking On The Bad Side”, “Still Remember”, “The Riot Of The Young Guns” or the commercial “Hear It On The Radio”, together with more edgy tunes in the title track “Big City”, the Dokken-esque “Escape From The Rock” and the syncopated “Latin Lover”.

For “Big City XX Anniversary” we have a track originally left off from the original release, “Fly High (Hero)”, previously only appeared in their Italian label compilation ‘Nightpieces vol. 5’. A good keyboard driven tune, although the production quality differs from the rest of the material.
Also featured as bonus is “Snake ’92”, a fine semi-midtempo melodic rocker which is a re-arranged song from their ’86 debut.
Long time out of print, this is your opportunity to get a very good Melodic Rock / AOR CD at reasonable price.
Recommended.

01 – Rocking On The Bad Side
02 – Big City
03 – Still Remember
04 – Latin Lover
05 – Fast As An Arrow
06 – Escape From The Rock
07 – The Riot Of The Young Guns
08 – Lucille
09 – She Will Be Hanging Over
10 – Hear It On The Radio
11 – Hitman Boogie
12 – Fly High (Hero) [Bonus Track]
13 – Snake ’92 [Bonus Track]

Elio Maugeri – Vocals
Simone Falovo – Guitars
Stefano Turolla – Bass
Eugenio Manassero – Keyboards
Alex Jorio – Drums & Percussion

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