Switserland has quite a few unknown AOR/Melodic Rock bands. Many people think about KROKUS, GOTTHARD and maybe CHINA when I speak about music from Switserland. But there are many more bands. DOUGLAS for example released a very rare and unknown CD in 1991. Still one of the members is not really unknown.

The lead vocalist of this band is namely Klaus Luley, who has already appeared on six albums at least. He was the vocalist of the band TOKYO in the early 80s. This great AOR band recorded 3 albums that all sounded pretty good and if you haven't got them, I can only say you must look for them, they are pretty easy to get and are quite cheap. After TOKYO, Klaus Luley went on to form CRAAFT, a band that also recorded 3 albums. This was a very professional sounding AOR/Melodic Rockband with some fantastic songs on their 3 releases.

In 1991 Klaus Luley sang the vocals on this album, although CRAAFT released in the same year their third and final album. Anyway, musically DOUGLAS is in the same style as CRAAFT, only the songs are not that good. The CD starts with some MHR songs like GOTTHARD. Third track "Up in the sky" is moving on to a more AOR direction, the song reminds me of FAIR WARNING. In fact, a lot of songs of DOUGLAS remind me of the first two albums of FAIR WARNING.

Besides "Up in the sky", also the two AOR Ballads "Never look back" and "Sandy" are sounding very good in the FAIR WARNING style. Same goes for the uptempo melodic rocker "Why" that also has some BONFIRE influences. Besides this intersting songs, there are also some average tracks such as "Proud" and "Sweet sin". These songs are just fillers and sound like something VICE did on their CD 'Second excess' 45 minutes long. This CD of DOUGLAS has a playing time of a llittle more than 30 minutes for only 9 tracks. And not all the tracks are really good.

So, if you want to buy this CD, you don't have too much pleasure of it. Still, you also don't have to avoid it. If you like the CRAAFT albums, then this is a must for you to have and not only because Klaus Luley is the vocalist. There are some songs on this CD that are up there with CRAAFT. Only thing is that it will be very hard to get, here's the e-mail address of Robert Pancur: Pancur@pfaffenwinkel.de  I'm pretty sure he can get you a copy of the CD
 

(Points: 8.0 out of 10)