Super Eurobeat 128

1.Dave Simon - Killer (Time)
After the awesome nonstop compilation 127, we're treated to more new material and for a change we get one killer song from Time. The track kicks the album off with an energetic and catchy song that sounds a lot more like the materials we've come to expect from A-Beat C and names like Powerful T. for example. An awesome song on all standards and the song leaves you feeling very satisfied. The lyrics are rather interesting, and a certain anonymous person keeps on hearing "Killer with an erection" in the lyrics, which always seems to amaze me.
Rating : 9+

2.Lolita - Wanna Be Your Emotion (A-Beat C)
The album carries on with the queen of eurobeat, who yet again managed to capture my heart. I can't honestly think of a better female vocalist to sing songs like this, Elena's vocals are at the same time energetic, happy and catchy, that is mainly the reason why her songs always manage to rise above the masses. This is yet another catchy basic eurobeat song with an excellent chorus, it may not have the same strenght as for example Ready To Dance on SEB122, but still it's better than many other songs on the album, just what we can expect from her.
Rating : 9+

3.D.Essex - Restless And Wild (Delta)
And here we have the name I at first didn't like at all, but it was this song and Thank You-Arigato that made me realize how good he is. Restless And Wild is pretty similar to many of the D.Essex songs in the past but the feature that separates it from the others are the excellent backgrounds and the magnificent chorus that has more balls than 10 Mega NRG Man songs put together. The excellency of this song was enough to convince me to turn my direction completely for the male vocalists on eurobeat history, so I pretty much have many reasons to give the song the grade it's getting, but otherwise as well, this is a killer song, don't miss out on this one.
Rating : 10+

4.Sophie - Waiting For The Sun (Time)
After a very strong album opener we get the name that has previously also often spoiled albums by mediocore calmness. I don't have a lot against calm songs in general, but the thing is that the eurobeat beat just doesn't fit a lot of the calmer songs out there, and therefore I always get a contradictory feeling from them. Sophie has done some marvellous songs, but the truth is that most of the songs sound very similar and also boring, fortunately this time she's slightly above the most of the her songs. Waiting For The Sun starts out rather boringly, but after a few replays the song started to sound better, and eventually I started accepting enough to not skip it. Again not my favorite name to appear on a SEB, but things could be much worse.
Rating : 7

5.Dave & Domino - Shake Your Bell (A-Beat C)
The duo, that has gotten rather negative feedback from me, because I've found 99% of their songs to be very boring or just crappy. I pretty much value both names as individuals (well Domino a whole lot more than Dave but I still have some respect for Davey as well), so it feels odd how they get boring songs time after time. Anyways Shake Your Bell is a song where yet again we hear more of Dave who sounds decent, but it's really Domino who wins the points for this song. A mediocore song that takes a while to get used to, the general eurobeat energy is no where in sight, and the trumpet (or other acoustic instrument like that) in the background at first sounds very bad, but it just takes time to get used to it. Give the song some time, and it won't sound as bad as it sounds at first.
Rating : 7+

6.Delta Queens - Love Me Again (Delta)
The different Clara titles put together, or is it? Well we haven't gotten any certainty if there are others in the Delta Queens than just Clara. This song starts out as rather mellow, but slowly builds up energy and a few replays earn this song much more edge than I at first thought I'd give it. Still the Delta Queens haven't gotten anywhere near to the level of the A-Beat Sisters who have gotten way better songs in comparison, but still this is a nice performance and the vocals in particular sound great.
Rating : 8

7.Norma Sheffield - Tender (A-Beat C)
Perhaps it's just me, but did Norma suddenly start to sound a lot worse? I haven't had problems with her voice before, but I didn't really ever notice that she actually could sang so badly, enough to give me  chills going down my spine for some reason (and not the good kind of chills). The melody is nothing magnificent, and the sounds are your typical piano/beat combo, that gets lost easily, and actually the only part in this song I really liked was the c-melody that in it's simplicity sounds great. A boring song yet again, skip.
Rating : 6½

8.Leslie Parrish - Wonderlight (Delta)
So more of Clara and I won't complain as the level suddenly went up a lot with this interesting song. The intro has cool sounds and when the hyper synth is added in you just feel start to feel energetic even if you don't want to. The chorus boosts the mood even more and once the c-melody is back in business the song builds up even more energy, a great sollution and for some reason I felt as if the song would've gotten faster and faster as it progressed (though it didn't). The song doesn't offer anything we wouldn't already know well, but it produces a nice mixture with the good old elements.
Rating : 8½

9.Powerful T. - Great Balls Of Fire (A-Beat C)
After a line of girly girl songs, we're treated so a song with a lot of balls, as Powerful T. displays yet another energetic song with a fun-packed chorus. Like most songs on the album so far, this one also recycles old elements and in the end creates a mixture that is not anything new or special, but just a basic good song. The catchiness of the chorus relies pretty much on the great vocals, that don't really go up and down like normally with Powerful T. so perhaps the people who don't like the extreme key-changes would like this one as well.
Rating : 8½

10.Kevin Johnson - Pretty Little Girl (Delta)
For some reason I've started to grow a liking to Kevin Johnson and his songs mainly because he sounded so damn good on the Euro Acoustic Essence version of Little Crush. Suddenly I notice that my ears are open and I can hear how damn good the guy sounds. This track is another typical eurobeat song with a great chorus and a kick-ass c-melody, but again it's not a song that would break the genre barries to add in something new unfortunately. A nice song, and a big plus for the great vocalist.
Rating : 8½

11.Mary Lane - Nice Boy (Time)
A very beautiful musicbox intro starts another Time song that got my hopes up as the intro just sounds so cool. A lot of the times when the intro sounds spectacular the song turns out rather mediocore, and that applies partly this time as well. The verses in the song sound very tedious and they're like from a different planet with the other parts of the song. The backgrounds are rather light and the vocals are the key-element thorough the song but at least during the chorus and the c-melody the sounds actually get to shine a bit, in particular huge plus for the c-melody. Nice vocals and pretty simple lyrics, though at the same time rather cute.
Rating : 7½

12.Valentina - That You Want (A-Beat C)
How 80's can a song sound? Everytime I hear this song I'm taken back to my childhood, the intro sounds exactly like the music I heard as a kid, fortunately it changes a bit but the 80's synths and the vocoder sounds drag it a bit back to the golden decade. I'm not the biggest Valentina fan but somehow this song managed to capture my attention on the very first time I heard it, perhaps the nostalgic 80's feel is what made me like it (so I'm a huge fan of the 80's music, so what?). Excellent chorus, excellent c-melody, a good song over all, more materials like this from Valentina, still Harmony remains unbeaten.
Rating : 9+

13.Toby Ash - My Love Is Forever (Time)
Time seems to do their regular yo-yo movement again, as we have had a couple of great songs and also a couple of bad songs. This song is again pretty typical eurobeat, but the spoken male vocals in the chorus sound exactly like the vocals on the older Ace Of Base vocals and I always get warm and fuzzy feelings as I start to think of Happy Nation and that's why I probably liked this song more. So I can say that when the links to other songs are done with taste, and not very obviously they're a good thing. Good song on most levels, great on the chorus, boring due to the mediocore sounds.
Rating : 8+

14.Helena - Illusion (Time)
Time seems to stick to the same patterns with a few of the names, like Helena for example, this song is pretty similar to some of her songs, and this time the similarity is a drag for the song. I couldn't probably tell this apart from Just An Illusion even if the latter one was made over 100 SEBs ago. The song is much better than the music we hear on MTV over here, but when I know that there's a lot better songs to go for, I probably wouldn't listen to this intentionally, but I don't either skip it when I listen to this SEB.
Rating : 7-

15.Nuage - Sunday (A-Beat C)
And on to my next favorite, I can't help myself as I've grown a liking to many of the female vocalists on A-Beat C... Nuage, Lolita & Domino always brighten up my day, and I have the masterminds at A-Beat C to thank for that. This is yet another fantastic song on the line of Nuage's impressive performances, a powerful chorus, awesome backgrounds, catchy melody and of course the great vocals. What more can a person ask? And as it's Sunday when I'm writing the review I'll say that this is just the perfect song for the moment.
Rating : 10+

16.Robert Patton - Vampire (Time)
Eurobeat with themes is always a good thing, this time we're again in the world of vampires, and it's not the first time, just got flashbacks into Hot Vampire and Black Vampire. In comparison to the two this one falls somewhere in between, and is a nice song that shines mainly because of the variable and different backgrounds. The occasional screams at first sound nice, but eventually just start to annoy you as they aren't the nicest thing to hear. The Transylvanian sounds give the song a distinctive feel which in addition to the great vocal works make the song stand out above the mass.
Rating : 9-

17.Virgin Power - Living For (Delta)
After the rather grim feelings we're taken back to the more upbeat athmosphere by the name that always makes me feel dirty for some reason (so yeah I'm a pervert, everybody knows that already). Living For is a typical Delta production with good girly girl vocals and effective backgrounds. For girl eurobeat the song has rather heavy backgrounds (we're not talking about _HEAVY_ but in comparison to the vast majority), which makes the song stick out and eventually rise above many others on the album, a good song as we're getting nearer to the end.
Rating : 9

18.Matt Land Feat. Kiko Lourero - The Road Is On Fire (A-Beat C)
The best for the last? Well at least my favorite vocalist is back with another song, and he sounds as sexy as always *purrs*. Like we've already learned Matt doesn't release a bad song, and that applies again. This song is a catchy song that's heavy on the guitars on the backgrounds, so everybody will surely know we're on A-Beat C grounds. The chorus in the song stands out clearly from the rest, and the catchy c-melody boosts up the effect even more, a pity though that the verses aren't as catchy as the rest of the song. Still a great way to end the album, and still high quality the Matt style.
Rating : 9

Final Words :
After the great Nonstop album I was rather surprised how well this album turned out, too bad that this is 128, as the nonstop that is 130 won't probably have as many songs from this album that would really earn to be on it. A great compilation over all, and specially Nuage and D.Essex offer real treats from different styles of Eurobeat, so there's something for fans of different styles. Overall this album wasn't probably as cheery as most of the eurobeat albums in the past, which might please some a lot, but I found it to be a bit of a minus, as the happier songs are always bigger hits for me. Anyways, this is a solid SEB and definitely recommended for any person who enjoys good eurobeat.

Final Score : 9-

Reviewed by Bore