Fortune - Storyline

Hear The Track Here

Definitely was my good fortune (Ed: groan, and in the first sentence too. Has this man no shame?) to come across Boston based Fortune whose classic rock approach won them three Must Haves in a row from me. There again, Fortune specialise in Ye Olde Schoole rocke, and that will always been my favoured genre simply because I grew up immersed in it. Having said that, Fortune - being American - put their own particular slant on it and come out sounding like Boston (the band), Queensryche, Journey,Kansas and a million others. What makes Fortune distinctive is their knack for writing a decent choon which is what - more than anything - earned them the plaudits from this reviewer.

Don't even get me started on faultless production and arrangement.

As you can see at their official website, they are first and foremost a live gigging entity as their excellent You Tube video collection shows. Definitely a place worth a visit if - like me - you like this band. I can't say that Storyline hit me with the same impact as say All Sold Out (December 2008) but that really was a standout track, and I am probably very influenced by its very American approach. It doesn't stop me, of course, admiring just how good Bob Vose, Bill Plourde, Pete DiStefano, Lou Spagnola, Jeremy Heussi and Dickie Paris Jr. (collectively Fortune) are at their trade.

With most people, the first ten to twenty seconds of a track determine whether or not they will really listen to it. Thats why most experienced musicians will spend time constructing the perfect intro and Storyline has a classic example of it. By the time the song kicks in around :22 seconds in, you are lost in a incomparable time loop, back in fact to the early seventies prog rock scene and - with repeated playing - this track failed to score with me. That is not to say it not good, it's fekking brilliant - a perfect example of the genre in every respect. My problem is that I spent a lot of the 1970's listening to vast tracts composed by the likes of Journey,Kansas, Styx et al, principally because I toured with some of these artists, and I've hated the genre ever since. Can't fault Fortune though, because this is obviously a question of personal taste.

MUST HAVE prog rock, American stylee.