A year ago I heard the Italian Airborn for the first time. A band that plays melodic power/speed metal in the vein of Helloween and Luca Turilli. Although their album Against The World was truly nothing new, Airborn at times showed promise. Now the band is back with D-Generation and I must say it is rather disappointing.

D-Generation opens with the short instrumental “Creation” that could have been taken right off a Luca Turilli album before thundering into the opening riff of “Survivors”. So far so good. The riff is fast and melodic and a pure trademark of this band. All seems well ‘till the chorus starts. The choir like vocals sound like a boy band and to my dismay this continues in each and every song. Sure, it’s catchy and sure it’s easy to sing-along but we’re talking about metal here, not the Backstreet Boys! Listen, for instance, to the fourth song “Extraterrestrial Life” and you’ll know what I mean.

To Airborn’s advantage I must note that the band has managed to develop more of a personal style on this CD. There’s some pretty psychedelic keyboard work, which adds another dimension to the otherwise very straightforward but powerful songs. Airborn has made simplicity a work of art and everyone knows that simplicity is the way to stardom. Sad but true.

Also Airborn isn’t afraid to copy ideas at times; I’d swear that during “Crystal Skulls” the band sounds like Bon Jovi and the riff of the bonus track “Astronomy” sounds dangerously close to Gary Moore’s “Over The Hills And Far Away”. All in all pretty disappointing, I’d expected a bit more from these Italians than this album full of sing-along songs. Can we call this glamour metal? Who knows; if they use makeup to match their sound, then we certainly can.