Shark Island
Gathering of the Faithful

Release date: July 7th 2006
Label: Frontiers Records
Provided by: Zink Music
Distribution: Bonnier Amigo
Website: -
Style: Melodic Rock

Rating: 52/100
Cover artwork rating: 70/100

Reviewed by:
The Jack
Date:
September 10th 2006

I was really excited when I put on this CD. Being a devoted Hard Rock collector, I sometimes come across a lot of obscure releases and when I found Shark Island’s brilliant debut from 1989 a couple of years back, I fell in love instantly!

So, with those Hair-band anthems of the debut (“Law of the Order”) still ringing in my ears, I really expected a blast from the past putting on this album. But this has nothing to do with their Hard Rock heyday material at all. No Sir! They’ve put all the anthems on the shelf and toned it all down a notch or two! In this case that ends up sounding like an anonymous mixture of modern BON JOVI over classic melodic rock song-writing plus an additional taste of KINGDOM COME. Unfortunately it all ends up being pretty average! Maybe it’s the fact that Richard Black has changed his style of phrasing? I really can’t tell. But I can honestly say that this is far from good enough! Perhaps I’m judging too hard here since the debut always will be a classic from my point of view but I’ve really heard more exciting material being released from Frontiers.

Sporadically we hear potential “hits” on this album, i.e. “Go West”, which almost made me sing along but the overall picture being drawn here is a rather boring one!

Forget about all those mid-tempo acoustic ballads and I’m probably willing to give this band another try!