Reborn

Reborn is the debut album by Northern Kings, a group of four Finnish singers, released on 31 October 2007 by Warner Music Finland. The cast: Jarkko Ahola of Teräsbetoni, Marco Hietala of Nightwish and Tarot, Tony Kakko of Sonata Arctica, and Juha-Pekka Leppäluoto of Charon. The idea had formed naturally while they sang together on the Christmas metal venture Raskasta Joulua. Behind them stood Erkka Korhonen, who both played guitar and produced, with Erkki Silvennoinen on bass and Vili Ollila on keyboards — which is to say the Ari Koivunen band, entire. The backing here comes straight out of Koivunen's camp. Thirteen songs, 68 minutes, and not one of them is a metal song. It opens with Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" and runs through Tina Turner, Mr. Mister, Billy Idol, David Bowie, Jethro Tull, Cutting Crew, Peter Gabriel, ELO, Phil Collins, Radiohead's "Creep" and Lionel Richie's "Hello" before closing on Dire Straits' "Brothers in Arms." The arrangements swell around Mikko P. Mustonen's orchestrations; Mikko Karmila mixed and Svante Forsbäck mastered. Two singles were drawn from it, "We Don't Need Another Hero" and "Hello." It passed 17,000 copies in Finland alone and went gold.