Shadowman - Watching Over You
Shadowman is a bit of a cult AOR supergroup featuring Steve Overland (Wildlife, FM & The Ladder), Steve Morris (Gillan, Heartland), Chris Childs (various recording and touring gigs including Thunder, Go West & Andy Taylor) and Harry James (Thunder, Magnum).
I remember the Wildlife album I had being impressive stuff and since then Steve has been a favourite vocalist of mine, especially when FM where hitting their high spot. Heartland are another great UK melodic rock/AOR band where Steve Morris hooks up with another good vocalist, Chris Ousey). Thunder are another band that feature in my record collection. Therefore my expectations for this album we pretty high. In fact, I’m pretty surprised that this is my first encounter with Shadowman.
Well, as you would expect from musicians of this calibre, this album bops along quite nicely. The Led Zep influence on "Heaven Waits", "Whatever It Takes" has hints of the Eagles and little keyboard flourishes on tracks like "Waiting For A Miracle" (Gillan influence?) are the other things that kind of surprised me, but otherwise everything is as expected. Fans of UK melodic rock as performed by FM & Heartland will be very happy with it. It has been a while since I listened to any material featuring Steve Overland, and this is an excellent reminder of what I’ve been missing. Of course, for Steve to shine the rest of the guys need to play their part and this they do so in style.
When the band hit a groove the music seems to flow effortlessly, such as on tracks "Watching Over You", "Waiting For A Miracle", "Stop Breaking This Heart of Mine" and "Party Is Over".