Artist description Consists of Male Vocals, Guitars, Keyboards, Bass and Drums

Music Style Straight AOR Melodic Rock

Musical Influences Boston, RTZ, Santana, Alan Parsons Project

Similar Artists Boston, Heart, Santana, Alan Parsons Project

Artist History Formed in 1983, released 4 albums from 1983 to 2003.

Group Members Peter Hanmer Clint Cunningham Dave Sharp Sherry Jones

Instruments Guitars, Keyboards, Bass, Drums, Male Lead Vocals Female Backing Vocals

Albums Off the Edge, On the Run, Just Another Band, Unfinished Business

Press Reviews From Compact Disc Services, Dundee, Scotland. Andy Garibaldi OFF THE EDGE: Unfinished Business CD£12.99 13tx/60 mins Fourth album from the South African rock band and it's a vast improvement on the previous album, in every way. For a start, the songs are a lot better with a set of female-vocal led anthemic compositions that will have you joining in the choruses after just a play or two. With several corking instrumentals along the way, this is a most satisfying album. It opens with one for those instrumentals and immediately we see a great production in force as the wicked electric leads are unleashed, while the guitar and bass riffs drive the track on via some strong drumming in there too. All melodic but still well heavy with a big, big sound. The first song, 'Hold On', has a mix of strong choruses that are very catchy allied to strong female vocals and instrumentally a great sense of dynamics using electric and acoustic guitars, surging riffs and clipped rhythms, restrained to crunching drum work, a searing guitar solo in the middle and as fine an anthemic AOR track as they come, getting the song side of the album off to a splendid beginning. 'Cry For Help' revolves around a similar structure, yet another infectious chorus and a feel of Lana Lane in its sound and qualities. In fact, I can imagine anyone into Lana Lane enjoying this album for a long time to come too. 'Alone' starts in reflective mode with just vocals and acoustic guitars, as gradually other instruments appear and the whole thing begins to build, heading for a sky-high AOR power ballad, which it reaches magically, only to drop back after the main chorus and then build once more, all tension and release done to perfection with a huge production, a great sound and another superb song equally well delivered by the band and vocalist. Of the rest, four further instrumentals show the band as a unit who can tackle a mix of rock, AOR and fragility to make compositions that fit totally in keeping with the flavour of the album as a whole. For the songs, there are a lot more great compositions with suitably multi-layered passages, while 'Remember September' is a truly heartfelt homage to the Sept 11th carnage as a superbly sung track set to just acoustic guitar, string synth and bass, initially, then builds to a fantastic, powerful AOR ballad that is to die for as band and vocals soar majestically to heights most could never dream of reaching, on a brilliantly composed song that is guaranteed to create a lump in the throat when you listen to it and remember, also lyrically aware too and one of the album's many highlights. Overall, a startlingly great talent that deserves far wide recognition on the strength of this album which doesn't have a bad track on it and is one that many fans of AOR and, to an extent, prog rock, will enjoy and treasure for years come. Off the Edge is a female fronted AOR / Melodic rock band from South Africa, who recently released their third album "Just Another Band". I have to admit that I'd never heard of the band before, but after I had listened to this new album I'm sure to check out the elder work. The band started in the early eighties and after a couple of line up changes, it now holds Judy Marshall-Schutte on vocals, Peter Hanmer on guitars and keyboards and Tony Groenewald on bass and piano. This threesome knows how to write and play lovely melodic rock songs, which remind me of bands & artists like Witness, Venus and Mars, Heart, Alison Avenue, Tone Norum, Dante Fox and that other great South African band Little Sister. The album starts off with a couple of party sounds and continues with the beautiful melodic, sometimes light progressive instrumental "Addiction". With "Do You Believe" you can for the first time enjoy the crystal clear voice of Judy marshall and after those two songs you will realise that you have another winner in your player. Great choruses and beautiful melodies are all over the album and if I had to pick out some favourites, I would choose the acoustic driven ballad "In My Heart", which gives you goosebumps, Brilliant! The straight in yout face rocker "Face in the Crowd", the super semi-ballad "St Aidans" combines AOR with Pomp-rock influences and all of the instrumentals are all very good tracks. But be aware that the other not mentioned songs are more that worth checkin' out! Ed Kriuskamp Rock Report Magazine.

Location Johannesburg, Gauteng - South Africa

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