Keys Heaven

After the success of Vision Divine, singer / songwriter Michele Luppi got the chance to record his solo album, and the Italian baptized the release as MICHELE LUPPI's HEAVEN, with the album's title “Strive“. This is a collection of songs where Luppi puts his heart out: this is the music he loves, and while musically is obviously influenced by '80s AOR what Luppi delivers in “Strive” is quite different, personal. This is the type of AOR albums which avoids common places: you have the catchy choruses, the keys, sure, but there's something 'extra', something 'special' about this album.

As much as The Moody Blues have earned the right to make a mediocre album, they shouldn't have been given the keys to the studio without a better batch of ideas than what ended up on Keys of the Kingdom. Like Sur La Mer three years earlier, many of the songs on here feel like prefabricated studio pop: programmed drum beats, sterile keyboards and soulless guitars pop up in the speakers seemingly untouched by human hands, compounded by brass arrangements and backing singers that were never a part of the Moodies' original vision…