Description

Either you know about Zeno or you don’t. This is the band that bears the name after guitarist Jans Jocahim “Zeno” Roth, younger brother of Uli Jon Roth, and the band released their debut effort back in 1986. Their debut is hailed as a AOR classic and all the remaning albums keeps a very high class. All Zeno albums has done tremendosly well in Japan where the annual reader’s pop poll of 1998 in Burrn! Magazine voted Listen To The Light as the second best album of the year while Zeno himself was voted second best guitarist and third best songwriter. When his album Runway To The Gods was released in September 2006 then it also sold very well in Japan and Zeno Roth as once again voted no 2 as the guitarist of the year, not bad for a guitarist that had to live in the shadow of his more famous brother. Zeno hired a new vocalist for the Runway To The Gods album, the voice of Jaded Heart, Michael Bormann, and this really works out well. Zeno releases new material very rarely but when he does then he shows his musical genius. If youre just slightly interested in melodic hardrock then you still should have heard the debut album and the definitive Zenology and the absolutely unsurpassable Listen To The Light. So where does Zeno takes us with Runway To The Gods? Well he just simply goes back to the melodic hardrock basics and avoid the overall rock opera texture (the orchestra, the multiple guitar layers, the theatrical vocal performances). What we have here is stellar guitar work, dynamic drumming smooth bass lines and really active keyboards. Non the less, the wizard has an ace up his sleeve with Bormann who sings fantastic throughout this album. Fanfares Of Love, Climb The Sky, Refugees, I Feel, I Live, Land Of Illusion are masterpieces of Pomp AOR/Melodic Hard Rock. While it would have been easy for the composer to recreate the formula of Listen To The Light (after being a mega seller in Japan) Zeno verifies with this album that he is by no means restricted by any rock idiom while remaining adamant in not making the same album twice. Unfortunately this would be the swan song of Zeno’s career as the guitarist sadly passed away in 2018 after struggling with a sickness for several years. If you dig Aor or if you like imaginative, spiritual melodic hard rock, you’ll love this album. Get it now

Track list:
1. Fanfares Of Love
2. Climb The Sky
3. Land Of Illusion
4. Shades Of Blue
5. Runway To The Gods
6. Sogno Di Angelo
7. Refugees (Longing For Paradise)
8. I Feel – I Live
9. Purify (Pilgrims Of Remembrance)
10. Do You Feel The Time
11. Sunset Birds Flying Home (Celestial Touchdown)