Stephen 'Age of Reason' is like a new era of STRANGEWAYS, a farcry from the usual AOR outfit they carried. In the past, they still combine the fast-paced tracks balancely with the ballads, but this album introduces a whole lots of slow-tempo tunes which made it's suitable for midnight/headphone spin. I hope it's only a glimpse of their need-of-change state and quickly return to their root in the next album because I'm pretty sure, this cannot satisfy many folks, especially those who grew with 'Native Sons' or 'Walk In The Fire'.

Now this is definitely a very moody album, depends on when and where you spin this disc. I'm thinking the best way to spin this is after a very hectic day, a hellish traffic maybe, you need to relax your veins with a glass of wine and tracks like 'Run', 'Playin' It Over' or 'Call' which I think are among the best in this record. Terry Brock is always magnificent and even if you dislike ballads, you'll admit that this guy has the pipes.

'As We Fall' and 'Silver Moon' are awesome, but they're slow and maybe too sappy for some. The only heavy song here is 'Frozen' but ironically, is the worst filler. 'End of The Day' and 'Long Road' are another good tracks here. 'The Sentinel' and 'Alive Again' aren't bad as well, but somehow inferior to those slower songs. 'Age of Reason' isn't for metal community but it has the classic hard rock grip with westcoast feel and strangely, also a combination of U2 touch. A nice lullaby disc for cooling down but I'm pretty sure it's not always easy to find the right moment to spin this.

Time Signature End of the day...

Genre: melodic (hard) rock

Not quite an album to grab you by the balls and punch your teeth in, "Age of Reason" can nonetheless be an enjoyable listen - if you are in the mood for it. The music is overall quite mellow and melodic, and melancholic - much like Jagged Edge's "Fuel for your Soul" from 1990 (but less interesting, I must say).

I quite like tracks like 'Frozen', 'Run' and 'Sentinel' which, while not track that blow one away, still have some nice hard rocking qualities to them (interestingly, 'Run' manages to combine blues based hard rock, AOR and U2-like rock) and are quite appealing.

My problem with this album, however, is that I think that there are way too many ballads on it, most of which strike me as being quite bland and nothing out of the ordinary (I do like 'As We Fall' which has a nice 90s alternative rock feel to it). What's more is that virtually all of the ballads are are organized consecutively, which means that there is a considerable stretch of music which is bereft of energy, and I think that most metalheads and hard rock fans are not interested in that.

So, for melodic rock this is not a bad release, and fans of rock ballads should love it, but the hard rocking tracks are simply to few and far between, I think, for the majority of of metalheads and hard rock fans to enjoy the album in its entirety.