Coastland Ride - On Top Of The World (2011)

One day in the middle of the summer of 1997 the three long time friends and musicians Mikael Bohlin (Keyboards and guitars), Anders Rybank (keyboards, guitars and bass) and Markus Nordenberg (lead & background vocals) got together for a cup of coffee and developed the idea to record and produce songs that they had collected through the years but had not been able to put on tape. The strategy for their project was to record great songs with the best possible sound quality and without focussing on a specific musical style.

Since they all were songwriters and had different influences the musical combination turned out to become an exciting melting pot. As the years went by the idea started to grow to make something serious out of the recordings and eventually in 2003 they released their debut record “Coastland Ride”, a tasteful blend of AOR, Westcoast and
Pop, on the German AOR Heaven label.

After releasing this CD, the band took a break for nearly six months before getting back together to record more material. Due to different circumstances it took nearly nine years before finishing the follow-up “On Top Of The World”.

The result is an album that picks up the Coastland Ride trademarks from the debut while refining the bands sound with a top notch production. Each song has its unique style and the tunes come to life through catchy melodies and tasteful arrangements and the lyrics are just as important as the music. Their stories combine actual events and fiction and the listener is invited to reflect on the lyrical themes while he enjoys the music. To elevate the songs to an even higher level the band again invited outside musicians to the recordings. Street Talk and Lionville guitarist Sven Larsson for example can be heard on solo guitar on almost half of the songs on the brand new Coastland Ride release.

In the fall of 2011, the Swedish band and German record company Avenue Of Allies started a partnership resulting in the release of “On Top Of The World” and a re-release of the self-titled Coastland Ride debut album.

“On Top Of The World” was recorded at various studios in Sweden, produced by Coastland Ride and mixed by the band together with Patrik Norman. Jonas Ekström was in charge for the mastering of the new CD as well as for the remastering of “Coastland Ride”. In addition to a significantly improved sound, the re-issue of the band’s debut also includes three bonus tracks in the form of the unreleased songs “Jenny’s Heart”, “The World Is Not Enough” and “Pitch Black Ride” from the original recording sessions.

With two albums just to be released Coastland Ride now will be focussing on bringing more new material to the table. And the band has promised that it will surely not take nine more years before the recording of a third album is finished.