CRUZH – Cruzh (2016)

Finally time has come; Swedish AOR band CRUZH will be releasing their first, self-titled album “Cruzh” via Frontiers Music.
At the beginning of 2013 CRUZH was presented to the music press creating some kind of mystery. The only thing shown was an image with the silhouette of the three band members and the first single. The track quickly spread on the internet and both Scandinavian and International websites (it was featured here on the blog) and radio stations played it and speculated around the identities of the band members. A cool promotional move.
Frontiers Music was impressed by the guy’s quality, and now their full length debut is ready to please the crowd.

Cruzh is Tony Andersson (ex Dawn Of Oblivion) on keyboards and lead vocals, Anton Joensson on guitar & background vocals (ex Eye, TrashQueen) and Dennis Butabi Borg handling bass and background vocals (formerly in TrashQueen as well).
Perhaps the first thing to note here is that Cruzh is not a resurrection or clone of TrashQueen, a glammy band. “Cruzh” is not a glam, sleaze, etc. Nope. Cruzh falls into into the AOR / Melodic Rock style. It’s not that their songs can’t have some edge, notably in the riffage, but their sound leans to the milder AOR side of things.
In short; Cruzh is classic Scandi AOR / Melodic Rock.

As with the classic style & sound of the genre, emphasis is definitely placed upon song melody and vocal harmony. Throw in some piano, as with the song ‘Stay’, and you have a mellow ballad with some West Coast breeze. Similar, possibly even more subtle and subdued, is the vocal-rich ‘Anything For You’ plenty of delicious layers.

All is balanced with rockers, melodic rockers indeed like ‘Hard To Get’ which begins with a smooth vocal harmony, only to lead into strong riffs and significant groove.
‘First Cruzh’ rocks with some edge, then ‘Aim For The Head’ is driven by bold riffs, sweet groove, tasty vocal harmony, singular melody, and a catchy refrain combine for arena-ready hard rock strength, while never giving up that AOR sensibility. It’s one of my favorites on the album.

‘Survive’, ‘Hard To Get’ and the Def Leppard-ish ‘You’ are all three excellent samples of Cruzh’s music; super catchy melodic rock as it gets. ‘Set Me Free’ is another highlight, a fast-paced rocker that grabs you at first listen and makes you wanna turn the volume to 10.

All three band members operate as songwriters in Cruzh and among their influences are Def Leppard, Toto, FM, Winger, Firehouse and Bryan Adams, and you can hear some of these influences here, but to me Cruzh has a typical European / Scandi AOR sound akin Bad Habit, Terra Nova, Grand Illusion, etc.
And I love it. I am a sucker for this kind of AOR and “Cruzh” does not disappoint on their debut packed with strong songs, fine musicianship and a classy production for the genre.
Highly Recommended

01 – In N’ Out of Love
02 – First Cruzh
03 – Aim for the Head
04 – Anything for You
05 – Survive
06 – Stay
07 – Hard to Get
08 – You
09 – Set Me Free
10 – Before I Walk Alone
11 – Straight from My Heart

Tony Andersson – lead vocals, keyboards
Dennis Butabi Borg – bass
Anton Joensson – guitars, backing vocals
with
Erik Wiss – piano, production
Louisian Boltner – drums on all tracks
Mattias Silfver – backing vocals on all tracks
Martin Johansson – backing vocals on “Anything For You”

BUY IT !
www.amazon.de/Cruzh/dp/B01G7UMKFE
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