Sometimes, when I am listening to a Hard Rock album that is rather based on Popish elements rather than Blues or early Rock N' Roll, I wish that it would be less cheesy than usual. It is hard to escape the notion that Pop can be a tormenting recycle bin that will never progress beyond the borders of that phony sweetness. Though I agree that Hard Rock, even with the patsy mood of AOR, shouldn't kick hard all the time but there should be at least some limit to the sticky cheese crust that might swallow it whole. Don't get me wrong, on this review I will not discourage the efforts of the Swedish ANGELINE and their new album, "Disconnected", via Avenue Of Allies, yet I wouldn't sum it as above decent.

ANGELINE comes in the same form that has been leading BON JOVI, EUROPE, H.E.A.T., HAREM SCAREM, later era of THE POODLES and other various examples from the lighter side of both the European and American Rock scenes. Some things will never change, that is the paramount thought that comes to my mind when I try to describe "Disconnected". ANGELINE's traditional way of Rockin' is pretty nice and overall following a wonderful sense of harmony between the lead section, meaning the vocals plus the lead guitars, and the rhythm section of the rhythm guitars, bass and drums. I judge that even without the astounding production that this album has, made by the devoted hands of the band's abundant guitarist and vocalist, Jocke Nilsson, the composure, the material along with the high profile performance would still be the main feature of this release. Nilsson, while performing his vocal duties, aided the material with his passionate voice that really made a mark as the premier attribute, even if it sounded slightly regular to this kind of music genre.

Though not making an impact on its own, while resembling almost every mixture of melodic Hard Rock and AOR around the world and through the history of this music, I had some great moments of joy from this album. "Found" was the gift of a zealous group that made an 80s like hit with modernized elements. The rocking "When The Lights Go Down", "Run Run Run" and "Solid Ground", a song which starred with a wondrous rhythms that conveyed a spiritual like atmosphere, and the never ending romanticism of "If It's The Last Thing I Do". By and large, ANGELINE knew and lived the roots of this Rock subgenre to create a fine melodic Rock piece, yet, it didn't change anything due to several issues that I had with it.

ANGELINE, as it would seem, made quite an effort on the choruses, as the prime climax of more or less every song, while disheartening, in a certain level at least, the rest of the songs' structures and features. The end result from this procedure was that the choruses were recycled quite a lot to the extent of sounded less special, too obvious and utterly cheesy. Furthermore, let me know how many times you came to pass by the word "down" all the way through the tracklist. There were jiffies were I was so annoyed by that word that I wanted to scream my guts out. Well, frankly it didn't happen on the first listen anyway, yet what does it say about the band? I can accept that these guys don't have much in their English vocabulary to write different lyrics.

"Disconnected" is probably far from being neither original, nor following any sort of innovation, which probably wasn't intended beforehand. However, how cheesy can you get? How much recycling can do really? Even with those questions that won't receive answers any time soon, if you are a melodic Rock, you would enjoy this release.