FARCRY — High Gear (review)

FARCRY — High Gear album cover Album · 2009 · Hard Rock Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
Stephen
Pete Fry, the former guitarist of RocKarma, departed from the band and formed FarCry with a fresh line-up. While the music isn't very much different from RocKarma which is circled around Danger Danger, Firehouse, and any late 80s or early 90s melodic hard rock, FarCry took a heavier path compared to RocKarma. Mark Giovi delivered a good vocal but Fry's guitarworks and solo fills are the band's highlight, and with a very good production, you can hear every details of his play in here.

I'm going to start with my favourites here, "Love Won't Wait", a blissful midtempo melodic heaven with radio-hit-potential chorus, guaranteed this will be frequently played if it saw the daylight in 1988. John Kivel, the producer, asked them to do an uptempo good ol rock and roll cover called "Nowhere Fast" from a band called Fire, Inc, and it came to my surprise they nailed it well. This song was penned by Jim Steinman and later he also put the song on Meatloaf's "Bad Attitude" album in 1985. "The Same Mistake" is a great combination of acoustical power ballad style with an upbeat chorus. Another cover by the Norwegian AOR band, Hush, "Talk To Me" has a gigantic chorus that could instantly hooked you. The closer, "Those Were The Days", has an equal strength with the opener, squeezed with a juicy melodic riffs and the chorus will reminds you of Journey's "Ask The Lonely", definitely a winner.

If you like ballads, "Fine Line" and "Heaven" are both good picks and a well-crafted arrangement. "Out of Reach" is like a long lost Firehouse track, has a commercial trace but the average singing style weakened the track. "Have It All" has an early Winger vibe, but along with "Kick Me Down" and "She's Crazy" are my least pick of the album. If you want me to compare to RocKarma's "Bring It", I would say this one is slightly inferior, due to couple of great songs are only covers and FarCry has a more explicit uneven songwriting. You probably will agree if I say that the first half is better, but "High Gear" successfully declared FarCry a potential band and this album provides a good kickstart for late glam metal / melodic rock lovers.
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