Mainland Europe has a long history of producing mainstream, radio-friendly rock bands a la Roxette, and Cornerstone very much belong to that lineage. If the cover art and band photos don’t give enough of a clue, there’s something of an 80s vintage about their sound (complete with sax breaks, slow fades, slap bass, and a smooth keyboard sheen… ok, so there’s no slap bass), and ‘Reflections’ is home to a number of what, back in the day, you’d call power ballads, with the piano-led, string-soaked ‘Whatever’ being a veritable archetype.
The bulk of the album is split between stadium-orientated anthems and mid-tempo soft rockers, and lyrically, they’re concerned with positivity (‘Not a Moment to Lose’, ‘Believe in Me’ – which sounds like it’s from Hollywood teen movie), nostalgia (as on the Springsteeny ‘Last Night’) or love (pretty much every track on the album). The production is slick, but solid. ‘Heart on Fire’ sounds like ‘Tango in the Night’ era Fleetwood Mac. But while it’s tempting to scoff and dismiss ‘Reflections’ for being derivative, the songs are at least of a decent standard, with some neat melodies and intelligent guitar work.
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Alina Peter has an appealing voice, too, and while she does the strong belting choruses, she also shows herself to be sensitive to the material and capable of more intimate delivery, too.
Cornerstone On Soundcloud
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