Lionville: Magic Is Alive (Frontiers, 2020)

Italian/Swedish AOR band Lionville is back with a follow-up to their excellent 2017 release A World Of Fools. The album – the band’s fourth to date – is called Magic Is Alive, and that’s a good title for any album that features Lars Safsund (Work Of Art, Enbound) on vocals.

Lionville’s overall style is pretty much Toto-worshipping AOR. It’s light as air, ultra-smooth and polished to perfection. They upped the electricity a bit on their last album, which helped set it apart from the previous two albums, and that energy is present on Magic Is Alive as well. It’s still very much a lighter AOR album, but like Work Of Art they’ve figured out a way for Safsund’s tremendous vocals to do for the songs what power chords might do on a more rocking album.

While we do get the occasional rocking track (see album standout “You’re Not Alone”), Magic Is Alive is largely built around softer love songs like “Finally You’re With Me” and “If You Don’t Know Me.” A bit more rock might have amped up the excitement level, but most of us are down to hear Safsund sing pretty much any kind of song at this point.

Magic Is Alive will not disappoint fans of the previous three Lionville albums. It’s not quite at that Work Of Art level of greatness, but it is a very strong AOR/melodic rock album that fans of bands like Pride of Lions, Place Vendome and of course Survivor and Toto will love.