BOULEVARD - Blvd. (1988) [remastered]

Requested in "REQUEST & FILL CORNER" section...

Recently reunited to play at FireFest the last weekend, this is a nice request to revise the career of Canadians BOULEVARD.
The band released two of the finest AOR albums appeared in the second half of the Eighties, and deserved to be featured on this humble blog.

Founder member Mark Holden owned a recording facility in Canada, and started a studio project together with session musicians called Modern Minds. One of the songs picked the interest from CBS records in Germany and signed the band. The single gained success in central Europe so the guys traveled to Germany to make a video and appear in TV shows.
But with most of the musicians with obligations in Canada and the impossibility to get a reciprocal record deal in North America, the band returned to Calgary.

However, two years after, Holden's connections ended up inking a deal with MCA Records and consequently the group moved to Vancouver.
Baptized BLVD (they would switch the name later to BOULEVARD), and with some line-up changes, the band recorded the debut LP with producer Pierre Bazinet (Luba, Sass Jordan) who helped to shape their sound; they hadn't even performed together as a band or road tested any of the songs.
But the stupendous initial results encouraged MCA to brought in legendary cats like Mike Fraser, Bob Rock and Humberto Gatica to mix the songs.



"Blvd." was commercially successful, spawning four singles and two video-clips, with Blvd. touring North America with Glass Tiger, Boston, etc. This is music done with class, top AOR I'd say.
It has the 'Canadian sound' of the era: velvety melodies, clean instrumentation, pristine production and the smooth vocals of US born David Forbes.

This is the remastered version appeared some years ago in Europe (and not easy to find) numbered and limited to 2000 copies.
"Blvd." is an essential record in your AOR collection. The second from the band, also a must have, coming up next.


01 - Dream On
02 - Far From Over
03 - Western Skies
04 - Never Give Up
05 - In The Twilight
06 - When The Lights Go Down
07 - Under The Moonlight
08 - You And I
09 - Missing Persons
10 - You're For Me

David Forbes - lead vocals
Randy Gould - guitars
Andrew Johns - keyboards, , backing vocals
Randy Burgess - bass
Jerry Adolphe - drums
Matt Frenette - percussion
Marc LaFrance, Brett Wade - backing vocals




BOULEVARD - Blvd. [remastered]
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