As someone who mainly listens to male fronted Rock bands, I often get skeptical when I listen to female fronted bands. I mean I'm not saying girls can't Rock, as they can, but I've just become accustomed to hearing male singers over female ones. My view on that subject changed roughly a couple of years ago and now I am highly welcoming of female fronted Rock bands that I get sent in for review and the ones I've heard so far are very good so is today's promo the same or not? Let us find out shall we?

The band in question is called HIGHWAY DREAM and last month their debut album "Wonderful Race" was released. They formed in 2008 in Cremona, Italy and originally they were a 5 piece band but they are currently a 4 piece. In 2009, they released their EP "Born To Be..." and have spent the last few years polishing their skills as musicians by playing live as much as they can while getting ideas together for their debut album.

I will confess is that when I first heard the singer, it did honestly sound like a male rather then a female to me but then I realized it was a girl singing so I apologize for thinking like that. I think the reason I did is because it sounded a bit different to the previous female Rock singers I've heard before but then again I've never heard that many Italian female singers.

Moving away from my original thoughts, I have to say I was very impressed with this debut album entitled "Wonderful Race" which clocks in at 44 minutes over 10 tracks. What I like about albums like this is that it's not specific to one style of Rock, as you have those which are heavy, fast, and loud throughout and you have those which are soft and melodic but some bands like to blend both into their albums with a mixture of heavy songs and a mixture of melodic tunes as well.

The albums opening track "Unbelievable" gives you a taste of what to expect from this band and the closing track "Born to Be a Rock Star" sounds like the type of thing you could open up a rock show with to get the energy flowing. Some of the heavy tunes on this album include "Don't Let You Die", "Many Reasons", "Wonderful Race" and "Like An Earthquake" and the melodic songs on this include "Let Me Be Your Breath" and "Some Stars".

There is some pretty impressive guitar work on this album as it sounds heavy with some pretty sweet solos thrown in for good measure. The bass riffs are also pretty cool as well as they sound very groovy and funky especially the intro to "Falling Down". The vocals don't sound too bad either but there are moments when the lyrics can be a bit hard to hear and sometimes you cannot hear some of the words but with that said, you do become impressed with what you can hear and soon you realize that actually, it's not really that big of a deal or a problem worth worrying about.

So what do I think of this Italian female fronted band? The first thing to say is that I will be adding this band to my list of female fronted bands that I like as I found this debut album from HIGHWAY DREAM highly enjoyable. There is a lot to like about the music on this album and despite any issues I may have addressed, those are not enough to put you off it as you will find yourself enjoying what you hear like I did. You know, I wasn't surprised that this would be good as it is from a European band and you know what I always say about bands that hail from that country so I will not repeat myself.