Friday, January 14, 2011

DEAR DIARY: "Dear Diary"


Rating: 5/10

Label: Eonian Records 2011

Review by Urban "Wally" Wallstrom

Straight out of the harlequin novels, I believe? Dear Diary?? Dear Lord!!... are they soft or simply just posh and the new/old Spice Girls??? Nope, it's yet another melodic hardrock discovery from Chicago in the late eighties, only to expire in the early nineties due to grunge. Yeah, yeah, we've all heard the story before and the fine people at Eonian Records are definitely experts at digging up these sorts of bands after all. They've done much better 'dig ups' in the past though. These particular sort of archival recordings are sourced from several eighties demos as usual and the quality may not exactly qualify as top notch.

According to the press-release the band rocked and stomped through practically every big name club out there, opening for Lillian Axe, Bullet Boys, Lynch Mob, and other popular mainstream melodic metal bands. ...And whatdoyaknow, Dear Diary sound exactly like any mainstream melodic hardrock act of the very early nineties and I sort of understand why they never hit a homerun past their hometurf and Chicago area. It's so bleedin' safe, so MTV friendly and mainstream that it hurts!!!

There's no such thing as 'outside of the box' material on this platter and the singer does not seem to be having a good time in the studio since it's close to borderline off-key at times. They do have a couple of really catchy tunes and I guess it's enough to attract some people to have a peek at their diary entries: Monday 15th of April 1988 - used ten cans of hairspray - momma said: turn down the volume, and for God's sake - don't light a match!!! The ozone layer is looking good - I might just use another ten cans tonight!!! Radical!!!

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