FREDERIKSEN-DENANDER
Baptism By Fire
Frontiers Records 2007
www.frontiers.it

Genre
Rock / Melodic Rock / Pop Rock

The Good
The ex-Toto singer teams up with the highly prolific Swedish guitarist to take the melodic rock scene by storm with a red hot combination of top notch singing and serious guitar shredding. The album gets off to a great start with the opener “Let Him Go”. I’m not sure if ex-Survivor keyboardist Jim Peterik (who was involved with the making of this CD) had a hand in writing this particular song but it has a definite Survivor feel to it. The vocal harmonies are excellent, the guitar work is hot and the rhythm section pounding away in the background does a lot to really elevate the song even further. The album features a ton of simply fantastic songs. “Silver Lining” and “Crossing Over” are two high quality rockers while “Written In Stone” is an excellent mid tempo burner. The song “Can’t Get Enough” features a smoking guitar riff and “Never Try To Love Again” is a superb rocker.

The Bad
Sorry to disappoint people, but this is one heck of an album and there’s nothing of note bad here.

The Verdict
You’ve got outstanding vocals from Frederiksen and searing guitar work from Denander. If you add in some great huge chorus moments and the overall arrangement of the songs you are well on your way. The album feels like it would fit right into the 1980’s heyday of melodic rock perfectly. A classy job all the way around, what more can you want? I can’t say enough good things about how fantastic this album turned out. You love melodic rock you say? Well, if that is true then you must have this album, period.

Did You Know?
Fergie Frederiksen’s real first name is Dennis. Tommy Denander has appeared on over 1000 albums, including works with Paul Stanley of Kiss, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page. Singer Thomas Vikstrom, who appears on Baptism By Fire handling backing vocals, has sung with doom metal merchants Candlemass.

Rating: out of 5

-- Jay Roberts