Band:	Shy
Album:	Sunset & Vine
Style:	Adult Oriented rock
Release date:	2005
A review by:	Malcolm

01. High Time
02. Open Your Heart
03. Soul Searching
04. Where Is The Love
05. You Could Be Dreaming
06. Don't Jump The Gun
07. First Love
08. I'll Be Home Tonight
09. Walk Through Fire
10. Slowly

One of Britain's leading AOR band, Shy, is once again back with a new album, their eight since the debut, "Once Bitten, Twice Shy", was released in 1983.
It's entitled "Sunset and Vine" and will be Shy's first release on the worlds leading Hard Rock / AOR label MTM Music.
And for a Hard Rocker like myself, I can't tell you how excited I was when this came by mail a month ago.

The first you'll notice with "Sunset & Vine" is the pretty strange cover art, personally I like it, maybe not the best I seen, but it represent the music in a very good, but strange, way.
And then Shy has one problem, their reputation as a good band is larger than their songs, many know Shy as a good band but can't say what they heard with them, or if they ever heard them at all.

But anyway, let's bet back to "Sunset & Vine", the album I have been longing for since I got the foretaste on the MTM Music Compilation Vol.10 a while back.
So when I putted the plastic in my player and the first song got started, I got this strange feeling that I'm not experience that often, I liked the album right from the very fist listening.
I'm dead serious when I'm saying that this doesn't happen often, I usually needs a couple of listenings before I really can form an opinion about an album, but with this I almost know what to say already after the first spin.

The very first track, "High Time" is a classic AOR that will please everyone that has some interest in this music.
Following "Open Your Heart" is even better, maybe not a real classic AOR song; this is a bit moodier than the first.
And the catchy and happy tune "Walk Through Fire", that's got, maybe, the catchiest chorus of them all.
Every song contains mostly appearance by the two masterminds' in Shy, guitarist Steve Harris and singer Tony Mills.
Steve likes to blend us all with this solo's meanwhile Tony is bewitching us with a voice that has to be one of the best in the whole AOR society.

Among the parts that's not as shining as the rest is the fact that many of the songs are a bit to alike each other, yes I know AOR is a bit unoriginal, mostly is sounds the same as it did during the eighties (With better production), but a bit more variation wouldn't be too much to ask for, would it?
And that fact together with the fact that I think there should be one or two more outstanding tracks, is probably the only bad things I have to say about this record.

"Sunset & Vine" is a little strange and it's very soft, but it might be the best AOR of 2005, even if we're only in February, I recommend everyone that has some kind of interest in AOR or Shy to check it out, you won't be disappointed, I wasn't.

Check Out: "High Time", "Open Your Heart", "Don't Jump the Gun" & "I'll be Home Tonight".