Gabor Kleinbloesem
Editor of Strutter'zine
http://www.strutter.8m.com or http://www.strutter.co.nr

Greetings from Holland, this review will be published during our next website update.

THE WINDOWS 'RUNNIN' ALONE' (RAISIN' KANE MUSIC)

Now this is a real rare piece and dare I say a real discovery, because the
only album of the US band THE WINDOWS had never been featured anywhere
before in the AOR community and now suddenly from out of nowhere a CD
re-issue of their only album from 1987 has emerged on the Internet. It all
reminds me so much of BOYSTOWN, a similar sounding band with also 1
obscure release in the late 1980s, which was re-issued almost 15 years
later onto CD. THE WINDOWS had the perfect 80s AOR/Radiorocksound that
could have made them stars in North America back then, but that did not
happen, although they toured extensively playing support to acts like THE
BEACH BOYS, PETER FRAMPTON, JEFFERSON STARSHIP and many more. They
originally sold over 10,000 units of their album on vinyl when it was
released in 1987. Now 22 years later the CD is there, although it was back
in 2001 when the CD was first released, but happily still selling through
their CD baby website. Musically pure 80s AOR/Radiorock/Poprock in the
style of AGENT, URGENT, HAYWIRE, CHAMPION, BYSTANDER, BOYSTOWN, BOULEVARD,
GLASS TIGER, etc. etc. Really uplifting catchy hookladen and melodic
chorus driven uptempo cheerful Poprock with excellent vocals and songs to
remember. Especially the beginning of the album is stunning, with
fantastic tracks like "Photograph", "Runnin' Alone", "Runaway", later on
"Voices" and closing bonustracks "Oh Rene" and "Never Let You Go" (BRYAN
ADAMSish). 10 songs of 'diamond Canadian AOR/Poprock style' in the best
80s tradition is what you get here and therefore be sure to check out this
release asap at: http://cdbaby.com/cd/windows and
http://www.myspace.com/windowsband and http://www.larrybrewer.biz/ Sadly
the band's keyboardplayer KIRBY JACKSON suddenly died a few months after
the release of the album back in 1987, but the band kept on playing until
1995 before calling quits. A shame, because their music never got the
attention it should have gotten. Nevertheless, the album is not forgotten
and any 80s AOR fan (especially AGENT and the first 2 HAYWIRE classix)
will absolutely love this CD release a lot! Guitarist/Lead singer LARRY
BREWER went on releasing quite a few solo-records, which hopefully will be
reviewed very soon here.

(Points: 8.7 out of 10)