Pamela Moore, known for her work as "Sister Mary" on Queensryche's Operation: Mindcrime, has been a cult figure in Seattle and throughout metal connoisseur circles. Finally, she peeps her head out again as the front lady for a decisively 80s sounding melodic rock act in RADAR.

The results are quite solid and not as forced or prepackaged as one might suspect. Radar does not sound like a backup band for Moore, but simply a group of musicians with a unifying interest for positive, commercial hard rock. Oddly, the least exhilarating number in the set is, "The Power Of Money", the lead off track. It almost comes of as left over from a Queensryche conspiracy album, at least thematically. But that's where the comparison should end. The first bright spot is in "Yours Tonight". This is pure fun, with pulsating keyboards and a huge hook. You can even "hear" Moore smiling as she belts it out. "Mirror Mirror", a subtle yet well constructed ballad, could easily have stood up against the best of the 80s love rockers. "Shotdown" has the kind of guitar intro Dokken would have adopted circa '86. Yet, when things kick in, the breeziness recalls peak form Helix. Despite the various references, the direction is clearly within a concise, professional focus.

The album, as a whole, is impressively balanced and well thought out. Quite frankly, it bests much of the melodic rock efforts of late that rely on a couple strong tunes. Save for first track, we have a winner. If you enjoy 80s commercial rock, add this one to your list. - Brian Coles www.electricbasement.com

Reviewer: www.ontherocks.de

I'm sure, that there´s only a handful of people who will remember the name Pamela Moore (no, not Pamela Anderson!). It's more than ten years ago, when she had her big entrance as sister Mary on QUEENSRYCHE's "Operation: Mindcrime" album. Today, while QUEENSRYCHE are slowly going down, Pamela Moore and her own band RADAR could really outstrip them. "RPM" is a good-class Melodic Rock album, that brings back the glory 80's and the sound of acts like VIXEN, Darby Mills and Lita Ford. Pamela has a hot voice with much expressiveness that fits perfect to powerful songs like "Power Of Money", "Lookin' For Love", "Shotdown" and "Something's Goin' On". The guitars sound sharp and harmonize perfectly with the gentle keyboards and the very fine arragned background vocals. Every song has a very catchy hookline, that seduce to join in the singing. The best song of the album is the beautiful and very dynamic ballad "Mirror, Mirror", that comes 15 years too late. In the mid 80's it would have been a clear chartbreaker. "RPM" is the best release on Kivel Records so far! Check out the soundbytes of the album.

Rating: 78 %

Strutter AOR

I am proud to present you the new AOR sensation: RADAR! They come out of Long Island, New York, USA and were kind enough to sent me an advanced promo copy of their forthcoming debut CD 'R.P.M.'. This CD will be released shortly, but I had the opportunity to hear in advance the album and I must say that this is really brilliant pure AOR/Melodic Rock in the best 80s tradition. I haven't heard such a superb sounding production on an independent AOR record for years.

The production and quality of 'R.P.M.' is very impressive and without any doubts, this band is beating a lot of the bands that are now signed to the European AOR labels. This is really powerful AOR at it's best, everything sounds just perfect! Radar is a five-member band featuring lead vocalist Pamela Moore. You may know Pam from her work as "Sister Mary" on QUEENSRYCHE's "Operation: Mindcrime" album. RADAR is nothing like that band, because you can know enjoy Pam singing pure 80s AOR/Melodic Rock.

This CD is filled with lovely huge sounding AOR/Melodic Rock and features those powerful lead vocals of Pamela who has such a strong voice that I can't understand why they never put out something before this album. Anyway, there are 10 songs on the CD and musically it is right up there with the big sounding records of bands like HEART, WITNESS, VIXEN and I even noticed a little WHITE SISTER (with female lead vocals of course) similarities in a couple of songs.

The CD opens with "The power of money", not the best song of the CD, but you can hear from the first seconds on that this band captures the big 80s Arena Rocksound that has been put on hold for one decade, but is now happily making a comeback with bands like NORWAY, SAVANNAH and now this RADAR. That first track is a nice 80s melodic hardrocksong a la PRIVATE LIFE, HARLOW, JOSETTE… Next track "Mirror mirror" is stunning. This song is a great semi AOR/Melodic Rockballad a la WITNESS. Man, this band is really HUGE!

Next up is the wonderful tune "Something's going on", a superb midtempo AOR song that totally has the perfect 80s sound, sounds like a cross between 1985-HEART, WITNESS and the first TONE NORUM. I like the songtitle of the next track which is called "Lookin' for love", but unfortunately the song itself is the first and only weaker track on the album. Following track "Shot down" is Classic 80s AOR all the way. This song will amaze every AOR fan in the world! This song is really HUGE and features not only some wonderful keys (by Russ Salerno), but also has a killer AOR chorus. This is the best song of RADAR and actually this one reminds me of WHITE SISTER, yet with female vocals.

It's not over, because also next track "Celebration" is very impressive. This song is wonderful AOR/Melodic Rock (with again great keys) and could've easily been on the WITNESS classic. The CD continues with the lovely semi AOR/Melodic Rockballad "In your eyes" which moves again into WITNESS, VIXEN, LAOS territory. Also "Yours tonight" is in this style, a classy piece of 80s AOR/Melodic Rock. The song "Win your heart" really has a superb start with classic AOR keyboards all over the place, though the song itself is a nice semi progressive AOR rocker like LANA LANE and SARAYA.

The CD closes with "Rockin'" and that's a surprise, because this song was already released way back in the mid 80s by an artist called DONNA CRISTY. She put out a record called 'People will talk' which featured superb female AOR rock and on that record was also the song "Rockin'". I am going to find out what the connection between RADAR and DONNA CRISTY.

There's a lot more history behind the members of RADAR, because besides Pam backing up QUEENSRYCHE in the 80s, also keyboardplayer Russ Salerno has done something interesting. Russ recorded a demo of VALENTINE (with Hugo) in his Mom's bedroom when they were known as "Afterimage". He's also the one who played the silly farm animal samples in "Too Much Is Never Enough".

So, there's only one thing we can do very soon and that's an interview with RADAR. Everyone that likes the good old 80s AOR/Melodic Rock of bands like WITNESS, HEAT, LAOS, HEART… needs to check out this RADAR as soon as possible.

Rating: 9/10