Revolution

Revolution arrived in 1995, six years after After Hours, on Sweden's Megarock. In those six years grunge had rewritten the market and melodic hard rock of this kind had nowhere to go. The band's shape had changed too. Co-founder and keyboard player Doc Pat Shannon was gone, and Sven Cirnski had come in on lead guitar; David Brandt and Tommy Falk covered keyboards as guests, and the centre of gravity moved to the guitars. Hal Marabel wrote and arranged all thirteen songs, while Bjorn Dahlberg handled production, engineering and mixing alone. Christer Hermodsson played strings, with Sara Heurlin and Axel Holtas on backing vocals. It runs from "Sad but True" into "Hunger," pauses for the 33-second "Waterflow," then "Too Late." The title track and "Reach for the Sky" carry the middle, and Bax Fehling's voice reaches furthest on "Wipin' Your Tears Away." The acoustic ballad "Broken Dreams" and "Rumours" close it out. A Japanese edition on Zero followed in 1996 with bonus tracks. What is telling is that the album was later re-recorded twice — as Revolution [r.e.d.u.x.] on GMR in 2003, and Revolution [Re-Vamp] on AOR Heaven in 2009. For a record released in the worst commercial year the genre ever had, that is unusual treatment.