【Pls look at the top comment first】This is an ultra rare album from Touris. The band is fronted by singer, songwriter and guitarist, Tony Touris, who is now a solo artist and creates original music from early years in Touris to present. So talented as he is, the early works of his band should never be missed. On the whole, this album of Touris can be considered as a good combination of hard rock and aor. Including both hard rock tracks and melodic rock tunes, "Big Plans" was a delicate produced job with all the tracks written by Tony Touris. There are at least 5 ballads among all the 13 tracks in this album, so I tend to classify it as a melodic rock release. A five-piece band including the keyboardist as Touris was, most tracks from Touris display charm of guitar works with keyboards gleamingly taking on, even in some ballads, there display peaceful riffs. Besides, some guest musicians were invited to this studio team as additional keyboards and drums. To be exact, this debut from Touris was an indie release, decent and neat, and deeply influenced by 1980s hard rock and melodic rock.

With less information of these members from Touris that can be found online, one thing can be sure that they used to have live performances for album promotion in Utica New York, where the band was formed, since the debut "Big Plans" came out in 1991 and won warm response by fans at the concerts. Two years after "Big Plans" was released, they recorded a single disc titled "Home For Christmas" in 1993 with two versions of one song "Merry Christmas To The World", a melodic hard rock gem with strong riffs and paces but conveys peace and love. After that, the band vanished from the public until 17 years later Tony Touris released his solo album "XV".

"Sweet Home" is the 5th track from the album. Simple as it is, the song is filled with emotions for home and lover. The voice of young Tony Touris sounds gentle and smooth, different from his performances in rocking works as well as his current solo records. Besides, don't miss "Touch 'n' Love", a melodic hard rock track which they performed on stage as one of
the representative works; "Tonight" is another impressive ballad that is considered as the best of Touris by most of those who have heard their album while my favourite is "Sweet Home"; "I'm Sorry" is what I consider as a must for aor fans to hear such a ballad ruled by smooth and peaceful riffs to convey its emotional vibe.

Compared to those early works from the band, the works from Tony Touris's solo albums sound more powerful as well as his voice that has changed a lot in the following years, much closer to typical hard rock vocal performance though there were still many emotional ballads and even those pop songs which Tony Touris is good at. Anyway, the themes of his works are filled with positive musical energy from his early band to present. As a solo musician who creates original music, Tony Touris has released 6 albums in the past decade. According to his Facebook pages, the newly-recorded single was completed in 2021 titled "Forever", included in his 2021 album "Rise Again" as he already uploaded on utube, so check out his utube channel "Tony Touris" to follow his solo works and music life which he loves to share with fans.

The official website of Tony Touris: www.tonytouris.com;
his facebook pages: www.facebook.com/tony.touris; www.facebook.com/tonytourismusic
#MelodicRock #aor #TonyTouris

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