With Nightwish releasing a cover song of Gary Moore's best song Over The Hills And Far Away, I felt like putting this extraordinary CD back for a few spins. It must have been like 5 years since the last time I played it... God what a mistake !!! I wouldn't believe my ears, this album is so impressive.

Gary Moore's Hard Rock was very melodic, with a musicianship level that many of today's artists would kill to try to equal. The songwriting is so advanced, so mature, that you understand why the guy is a (living) legend. The CD is from 1987, and already you find violins (real violins !!!) on some songs, violins that marry perfectly with the rest of the music to achieve a perfect melodic balance. Gary Moore's vocal are magnificent and the song variety on the album is simply mind-blowing, from fast to slower moments, quiet to more heavy stuff, instrumental, long version/mix of the two best songs on the album : Over The Hills And Far Away & Wild Frontier (both versions rocks !). These mixes/versions demonstrates you what you can do with a song, how you can make it evolve into something else, something bigger. The keyboards have also a very important place in the music, they add more atmosphere to the songs. Gary Moore riffs and solos are simply astonishing... the guy sure can play guitar (no kidding ?). Now THIS IS a guitar player, he can play fast but without making any compromises on the melody and that's exactly what I'm looking for from a guitar player.

Production is somewhat medium but that's pretty understandable considering the times.... but the mix is much better than many of today's releases ! That's the kind of CD that would really take full advantage of a digital remaster (I don't know for you, but if it gets remastered I'll re-buy it right away !).

It's sometimes very nice to listen to old masterpieces like this CD, which contains so many killer songs (if not only killer songs) !! For me it's his best CD. And something tells me that it's not leaving my player for some time now ;). Unfortunately (for me at least), Gary Moore decided to turn himself away from the metal sound a few years after and played The Blues (a style I can hardly stomach to be honest :(... ). Anyway, if you've never listened to this CD in your life, I suggest you stop losing time reading my final words and run to your favorite CD shop at once, something tells me you are in for a big surprise ! A true Classic.... forever !

Oh ! By the way, this is our 600th review ;) !