Review of The Iron Year in Holland's Strutter'Zine Magazine...May, 2008.

(Points: 8.1 out of 10)

CASEY HAYES ‘THE IRON YEAR’ (PERENNIAL RECORDS)

Singer/songwriter/guitarist CASEY HAYES is coming out of Louisiana, USA and playing a sort of Westcoast-AOR/Poprockstyle, sounding like a cross between DAVE BALDWIN and STEVE PERRY. Especially vocally Casey is quite close to STEVE PERRY, HUGO… Musically a bit calm, not really rocking, but a sort of mellow semi-ballad AOR type of style, with some great songs here and there, such as the great midtempo “Valediction”. I can’t help feeling like I am listening to a STEVE PERRY solo-CD, the way it would sound today I guess, because Steve would probably also record a more laid-back album instead of a rockalbum. So it would have been nice if Casey would have added some rockers, although towards the end it gets rockier and these are also the best songs on the CD, namely “Violet” and “61&49” (sorta 80s touch in the TOTOish pianowork), both fetauring an uptempoish AOR rock approach a la HUGO, but still some more uptempo rockers would have been interesting. Nevertheless, fans of HUGO, DAVE BALDWIN, DAVID KUHN, MATT GARBO, KYLE VINCENT, STEVE PERRY and such will really like this CD a lot. More info at: www.caseyhayesmusic.com  and e-mail at: caseyhayes2004@yahoo.com