Band:	Erika
Album:	In The Arms Of A Stranger
Style:	Pop, Adult Oriented rock, Pop rock
Release date:	1991
A review by:	Malcolm

01. 6. AM (Intro)
02. Wake Me up When The House if On Fire
03. Rock Me Into Heaven
04. Games We Play
05. Easy Come, Easy Go
06. In The Arms Of A Stranger
07. Make Of Stone
08. Walk Into My Heart
09. Shadows In Rain
10. Danger In Disguise
11. Fall From Grace

Sometimes I really wonder if Erika (Norberg), the famous Swedish AOR (Beauty) princess that took Sweden and parts of Europe with storm in the beginning of the nineties, is most famous for her music or the fact the she was married to the guitar-virtuoso Yngwie Malmsteen.
But with the re-releases of her first two albums through MTM Music's sub-label MTM Classix, I sincerely hope she's most famous for her music.

MTM Classix released Erika's debut "Cold Winter Nights" for about a year ago now (January 2004), and as far as I know, it did pretty well, even if it didn't create the same hysteria here in Sweden as it did when it was originally released in 1990. The song "Together We're Lost" actually ended up at place 7 on the Swedish single charts, and the album as place 13.
That's very good, since she's more of a Rock singer than a Pop singer.

With her tremendous sense of melody and her fantastic voice together with some very well written songs (The single, "Wake Me up?" was actually written by Alice Cooper's team Ponti and Pepe) she released her second album, "In the Arms of a Stranger", in 1991. That, unfortunately, didn't sell as well as the first, and the single "Wake Me up When the House if on Fire" didn't became the same hit as "Together We're Lost", and only reached place 21 on the Swedish single chart, meanwhile the album didn't get higher than place 35.
And that's a shame; personally I think "In the Arms of a Stranger" is much stronger than the debut.
Here you'll get 11 tracks that are almost even, there are no fillers, each and every track got its strong points, and even the single-track is much better.
Especially songs like the single, "Rock Me Into Heaven", "Easy Come, Easy Go" and "In the Arms of a Stranger" are much better than every song on the debut.

So why this album didn't sell as well, I can't really understand, because Erika got her very melodic voice still, and it's even better here.
But maybe the reason is that this album aren't as poppy as the first, and we know what sells best, if you want to sell much, Pop.

This re-release doesn't give much more than all songs re-mastered, but believe me, it doesn't need anymore.
Meanwhile you'll get bewitched by Erika's voice you'll feel very happy and it's impossible not to sing along with her brilliant choruses and melodies.
I could easily rank her as one of the best Female AOR singers of all time, and that's why I'm so sad that she's has given up music.
In front of 10.000 peoples she announced in 1999 that she was going to retire, and so she did. Today she's working as a journalist and a writer, and even some song writing.

I would recommend Erika to all AOR / Hard Rockers that wants catchy and happy music sung by a voice that's going to bewitch you.
And all fans of Erika, here you got a chance to buy this masterpiece of album fully re-mastered, the sound quality is brilliant and it brings even more life to her classics.


Check Out: "Wake My Up When the House is on Fire", "Rock Me Into Heaven", "Easy Come, Easy Go", "In the Arms of a Stranger" & "Shadows in Rain".