LIONVILLE is back with their fourth studio album. Melodic rock and AOR fans will rejoice that they only had to wait three years instead of five waiting for their next album "Magic is Alive", released in early July of 2020. The project was started by multi-talented Stefano Lionetti acting as songwriter, singer and guitarist, along with his brother Allesandro Lionetti in 2010. After listening to handful of demos, a label manager at Avenue of Allies enlisted Lars Säfsund as lead singer, forming the true core of the band. They released two independent albums - a self-titled release in 2011 followed quickly by II in 2012 - that both received wide critical acclaim. The pair of albums were received strongly enough among the European melodic rock scene that it earned them a spot at "Firefest" in Nottingham in 2012. It would take some time, but eventually the band were noticed by classic and melodic AOR-heavy label Frontiers in 2016 and got back to work to create more magic with 2017's "A World of Fools", providing them with wider promotional and distribution support.

Fresh melodic rock and AOR fans hold LIONVILLE in high regard and their new album "Magic is Alive" does not disappoint. "Nothing Without You" is such a strong opener with plenty of hooks, beautifully deep harmonies and keyboard/guitar work that is amazing - the latter something they have excelled at throughout their catalog. In true JOURNEY fashion, the band has the ballads as well with "Finally You're With Me" and "Into the Night" that is so packed with emotion, I imagine that Lars Säfsund giving his all on every line in the studio. There big attention grabbers "Every Little Thing" and "I'll Never Give My Heart Away" are huge, with mountains of layers but are still soft around the edges. They do wear their influences on their sleeves. The very TOTO-ish "If You Don't Know Me" features a stylistically similar instrumental mid-section. Even the albums closing title track "Magic is Alive" has a very strong TOTO vibe. Other influences like DOKKEN, RICHARD MARX, and even BON JOVI can be heard pretty liberally throughout the album.

There aren't many downsides though unless you want your melodic AOR to have a little growl to it. The production is especially sugary with that 80's sparkle sound, complete with the over-the-top, heavily reverbed guitar solos. You won't find bite or grit on any of these tracks, but that adds to the beauty of the album, everything sounds so studio perfect and being a big fan of a perpetually perfectionist progressive metal band like DREAM THEATER it had me hooked from the first track. While they certainly stick to a style and have very clear influences, the band are willing to experiment like on the funky "Reaching for the Sky" which pushes the melodic AOR feel into genres not immediately associated with it and comes as a welcome change-up on the latter half of the album. They may not be treading a whole lot of new ground and draw heavily from influences, but they make up for that with beautifully crisps vocals and production in general along with an arguably perfectly deep mix of quality tunes to air guitar along with while we're stuck in the isolation that is 2020.