Road To Eden

Product Information

This long player is an album full of colour and raw songwriting recorded live in the legendary Studio 2 at Abbey Road Studios. That choice would have created an album of two sides, one hard and one soft, and listeners could easily choose which they wanted to replay, depending on their tastes. Welcoming his audience, you can spot the die-hard fans, not just because they are singing along or are of a certain age; you can feel the warmth and see why Dare are enjoying longevity with such a loyal fan base.

Instead of entering uncharted territory, Dare stay in their comfort zone and evolve their sound instead of approaching more radical changes. But the thing about Dare is that the 2022 vintage might just be even better than the band that we had back in 1988.Bringing up the tempo and the joviality, we are asked ‘do we remember when Terry Wogan used to play what he wanted on his radio show? Sometimes more biting ('Fire Never Fades'), playing on the contrasts between the softness of the verses and the energy of the choruses ('Grace') or switching from a ballad-like introduction to a ride across the moor ('The Devil Rides Tonight'), each track invades the listener with a beneficial warmth.

It’s a lively rock ballad, with melding riffs and a vibe that whisks you away to days of summer-time. And if the luminous final solo of 'Thy Kingdom Come' with its masterful rise in intensity and its assumed Celtic pride finishes dazzling us, it also installs in us the melancholy of a journey that ends when we would have liked to see it go on and on.One or two songs more in that vein would have given ‘Road To Eden’ more body, as most of the songs are reasonably laid back, smooth and not really that much different from earlier work. So you get the best of both worlds here – the moody classic Dare mixed with a generally more uptempo vision, with guitars taking a more prominent role and really driving home these songs. That the keyboard player who actually founded the band had joined Thin Lizzy at 17 and would record three albums with them of more relevance. Remember me / I remember you… You are loved,” not-so-Rotten sings over a lush soundscape of gently twanging guitars vaguely reminiscent of Fleetwood Mac’s Albatross.

The two guys founded the band in 1985 and after the line-up has been completed, work on the debut gained speed. Once again, Darren Wharton and Vinny Burns stand out with their overall presence and performance and it would be a mishap if we didn’t point out that Wharton’s production skills absolutely shine on “Road To Eden” as the sound is crystal clear thus bringing out the best elements of each new composition. A triumphant live set at Sonisphere was followed by a flight across the Atlantic to begin work on their first record, with veteran manager Alan Niven ( Guns N’ Roses) at the helm. Led by former Thin Lizzy Darren Wharton, Dare has a more classic hard rock guitar sound not unlike Thin Lizzy and the more Celtic underpinnings of Gary Moore, which is very apparent on this album. Back in the late eighties and early nineties, Dare – fronted by Thin Lizzy keyboard player Darren Wharton and with the nation’s favourite scientist Brian Cox an early member – threatened to hit the big time with their AOR tastic debut ‘Out Of The Silence’ and the controversial heavier second ‘Blood From Stone’.

Their sound could be summed up as a sort of classic hard rock/AOR with intelligent and introspective lyrics. The song is a love letter to John's wife Nora, who sadly passed away from Alzheimer’s on Wednesday 5th April. Rewind to 2010 and the Welsh-born trio of Tom Hollister, Chris Buck and Adam Roberts were riding a wave of hype, hotly-tipped by some of the biggest names in rock - most notably Steve Winwood who invited the band to record at his storied Wincraft Studios.