Andrée Theander first picked up a guitar at the age of ten, and was soon determined to become a professional musician. As part of this he studied music at university and then spent several months in the USA where he attended various courses at the Musicians Institute (GIT) in Los Angeles. While he was there he came to the attention of Jeff Lorber who invited him to lay down some guitar tracks for his ‘Galaxy’ album, not bad for someone who was still studying. When he returned to Sweden he felt that he was ready to record his own album and created a band with Göran Edman (Street Talk, Glory, Y. Malmsteen) and Christian Hedgren sharing lead vocals, Herman Furin (Work Of Art, Fergie Frederiksen) on drums, Linus Abrahamson on bass and Michael Ottosson on keyboards.
The album was then mixed by Per Ryberg (Street Talk, Sven Larsson, Bloodbound) and mastered by Sören von Malmborg (Dan Reed, The Rasmus) and the result is something quite special. Andrée obviously has a very good ear for melodic hard rock/AOR, and has definitely been very heavily influenced by Toto and Talisman, and the result is an album that has an edge, loads of hooks, and great vocals. He has a wonderfully fluid playing style, and his shredding is perfectly in keeping with the album and mood yet has more than a hint of Satriani about it.
In fact, it is hard to find a fault at all with this album, as it is one great song after another, and “Mr. Know It All” could be a massive radio hit given the right support. If you enjoy AOR then this is something that needs to be investigated soonest.
www.avenue-of-allies.com
