The Night Flight Orchestra is as previously outlined the side project that took on a life of its own. It is well on the way to eclipse the main projects of the involved people.
Sometimes the World Ain’t Enough is their fourth album, and just like the quality of their output, their audience has increased with each release. I discovered them after their second album was out, and while the 1980s-style retro flavours were charming even back then, they have now grown to become simply irresistible.
The new album does not break from their usual formula. This band is all about celebrating the melodic rock’n’roll style of the 1980s, with solid songwriting and musicianship and a modern production sound.
The music happily mixes all kinds of 80s influences. The emphasis is on the melodic hard rock of the day, but there are touches of pop, disco, and everything that was in fashion. That does not mean that the music is all over the place, but rather than the basic rock stem of the band is augmented with different types of flair from time to time.
Each and every song has a huge sense of fun and are solid tracks in its own right. This is not a humour band, but it is a fun band. It is a band that tries to recreate something from the days of our youth, which is serious work, but when successful should come out sounding like fun times. This is not an easy task, and a harder balance to strike than it may sound, but on this album they do get it just right.
The album starts on an energetic note with This Time, where vocalist Björn Strid quickly gets to show off his high-pitched scream. It is a good showcase of the driving tempo they can have, and melodic vocals and the mix of nicely layered keyboards and lovely runs on the guitar quickly sets the tone for what’s to come. “This time death is certain, but we’ll be fine in the end” they sing, hopefully with the emphasis on the latter part of that sentence.
Turn To Miami is the single and video from the album. With a strong chorus of multi-layered vocals, mighty keyboards (now that’s a description I don’t use often), and a solid arrangement all around this song is a pure time tunnel. It sounds like it could have been a radio hit from the 1980s, but the experience of the band plus the sonic sharpness reveals a more modern edge.
Whereas most of the huge new bands in the 1980s were in their 20s, or at most their early 30s, these guys have been around the block and have a seasoned edge in their performance.
Paralyzed contains the catchiest moments on the album. It is one of those songs that contains every little influence it could soak up. The continual disco backbeat with that pumping bass-line on top just about makes the song, and especially the pre-chorus sounds huge. Just as you have settled into that infectious groove, it ends with a razor-sharp guitar riff, which naturally fits perfectly with the rhythm section’s established groove.
The song contains many different elements that fits effortlessly together. If I had to point to one song to illustrate this band’s ability to soak up all kinds of 80s influences and successfully merge them into one cohesive song, this is the one. It easily ends up being one of the album’s highlights.
The title track Sometimes the World Ain’t Enough is one of those songs that makes you go, “didn’t I hear this on the radio 30 years ago?” There is a sense of familiarity inherent in the style that is designed to make you feel nostalgic just from that alone, even though the song is as new and original as they come. You will know what I mean if you give it a listen.
If this album had come out in the 1980s, the record company execs would have had a hell of a time trying to decide on singles. As the album goes on, you experience one song after the other which are so well-crafted and full of hooks that they all could have made a splash.
Moments of Thunder has a guitar/keyboard intro riff that sound huge, setting up a power ballad. Suitably more mid-tempo than syrupy, with a lovely, epic production in the choruses. Speedwagon is a good pop-rock moment somewhere in the landscape between Bryan Adams and Foreigner. Lovers In the Rain is perhaps more melodic pop than rock, whereas Can’t Be That Bad is a more energetic pop-rock song again. These songs are all good handiwork, although if there is a place on the album where a feeling of sameness creeps in, it’s somewhere in this mid-album phase.
Things get more intriguing with Pretty Thing Closing In, which seem to take some inspiration from the synth-pop bands of the 1980s with lower vocal registers and a repetitive, hypnotic rhythm track keeping things going. This combines well with a few rock flourishes.
Things get even better when the earworm Barcelona kicks in. This is easily one of the better songs on the album, with a chorus to die for and yet another mighty keyboards-and-guitars overlapping riff.
Winged And Serpentine and Last of the Independent Romantics close out the ordinary album, and they are both solid songs with a solid melodic bedding – and perhaps a melancholic flair – that is built to last. The closing track in particular is a stand-out track with a reasonably typical “girl running away from home with guy” story, which (perhaps untypically) is told from the perspective of the guy. The story told is fascinating – the guy’s intentions well-meaning and sincere, but an overriding feeling that this won’t last combined with a reasonably dramatic music track adds urgency to the song.
The way the story ends up being summed up fits well with how we could look back on the whole 1980s music scene, which we have revisited again on this album: “Don’t you worry about the future; Times like these weren’t meant to last; But I’ll cherish you forever and this moment is eternal; Just like everything must pass.”
If you listened to music in the 1980s and have a nostalgic bone or two in your body, you should give this album a listen. Had it come out back then it would have been a mega-hit.
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