OCEAN HILLS, the name conjures up images of laid back Sol Cal, sun drenched beaches, waves lapping at the foothills of mountains. You would be half right.  Whilst the band are partly form the west coast US, the core is Eastern Europe.  This is summed up in two songs which follow each other on the album, "Santa Monica" and "Budapest My Love", both heartfelt love letters to these respective locations. These are two of the best songs on the album, and each has a feel of the location, "Santa Monica" has a West Coast rock vibe, and "Budapest My Love" has a Euro feel to it.

At the heart of the band is Zoli Teglas, a true renaissance man, once vocalist with IGNITE, animal rights activist and actor, including a small part in Terminator - Dark Fate, but a band it is, and a fine group of musicians they are, although there is no mention of a drummer, even though I can definitely hear drums, so either a session drummer was used, or whom so ever programmed the drum parts did so very well.

As for the style of the music, it is light, fresh Modern Rock, bordering on the Pop in places ("Death Or Liberty" for example is more lightweight than Rock).

Having been compared to the likes of SHINEDOWN and NICKLEBACK, there are indeed some tracks with the sort of delivery of the former, the opening track "Bound" for example, an upbeat, up to date song. With perhaps "A Separate Peace" delivering a catchy tune like the latter.  But elsewhere you can hear others of Zoli's Classic Rock influences, "Angel Wings" reminds me of BOSTON, with its lush vocals and easy, classy sound.

"Like A Lady", one of my standout tracks from the album, could so easily have been Brad Delp and the band.  A great AOR track driven by a superb twin guitar. And "Hold Me" reminded me, tangentially, of U2, but we can't have everything can we!

There are big parts of this album I like, but there are also parts I don't love so much.  I think it is a little lightweight in places, veering to the pop too often, and the album is a couple of songs too long, in my opinion.