Sandalinas - Fly To The Sun

Published January 23 2008

*=Staff's pick	Fly To The Sun* Never Seen Before Bad Dreams Back From The Light No Matter What* As The Rain Falls Double Cross Ring Of Fire The Wrong Side Of Me Shadows In The Rain The Healer Talks Seasons In The Sand

Genre	Melodic Heavy Metal	Rick Altzi	Vocals
Tracks	12	Jordi Sandalinas	Guitar
Runningtime	48 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	Metal Heaven	Mick Cervino	Bass
Release	18 Jan. 2008	Patrick Johansson	Drums
Country	Spain	Elias Holmild	Keyboard
Similar artists	Axel Rudi Pell

Jordi Sandalinas is a Spanish guitar shredder that started out in his early days as a pianist but switched his allegiance when he heard Adrian Smith play the guitar. After musical studies in both Spain and USA renowned guitarist/producer Andy LaRocque in 2005 took him under his wings and produced Sandalinas debut album, entitled Living On The Edge, that featured Firewind's current singer Apollo Papathanasio.

It's quite an impressing line-up that Jordi Sandalinas has gathered for his second album. What about Rick Altzi (At Vance) on the vocal spot, Mick Cervino (Blackmore's Night) on bass guitar and Patrick Johansson (Yngwie Malmsteen) on drums. The album also features famous guests such as Derek Sherinian (Dream Theater), Chris Caffrey (Savatage) and on top of that a cover designed by Derek Riggs!

By now you won't be surprised when I tell you that Fly To The Sun offers top notch performance by the musicians involved. Soundwise it's melodic heavy metal in the same neighbourhood as Axel Rudi Pell. The title track that opens the album is the most significant Pellish sounding song on the album and it's an absolute cracker with pumping bass drums and a memorable chorus to say the least. This is however by far the best song on the album even if No Matter What with its delicate vocal melodies has gained my interest the more I listened to the record. But apart from a couple of highlights and an overall great performance the lack of memorable melodies, interesting arrangements and tempo is more than evident. I recommend that Jordi focuses a lot more on the song writing the next time and delivers an album packed with killers like the title track. The harsh truth is that this effort will be quickly forgotten.

Performance	Originality	Production	Vocals	Songwriting
8	6	6	7	5

Summary
5 chalices of 10 - Hawk