For those of you who are not die-hard AOR fans or do not follow the career of the once defining voice of European power metal, Michael Kiske, let us begin be clarifying that Place Vendome are not a band. They are a project put together by the founder of Frontier Records, Serafino Perugino, who gathered Kiske, Kostas Zafiriou, Dennis Ward and Uwe Reitenauer from Pink Cream 69 and stuck Gunther Werno from Vandenplas on the keyboards. Interesting line-up, I hear you say… Well there’s more. For some reason Perugino decided to commission the songs on the album to 3 composers. Specifically, “Dancer”, “Changes”, “Believer” and the title-track “Streets of Fire” were composed by Torsti Spoof of Leverage, “Surrender Your Soul”, “Completely Breathless” and “A Scene In Replay” were written by Ronny Milianowicz (Saint Deamon and composer for Primal Fear), while Robert Sall from Work of Art and W.E.T offered “Follow Me” and “Valerie”.

Enough with the “appetizers”, let’s move on to the “main dish”. The album is clearly AOR with “Follow Me”, “My Guardian Angel” and “Breathless” raising the flag for this particular genre, while the title track and “Changes” have more metal and pop elements, respectively. The total result is relatively good. Perhaps not as good as to grab you from the first listening session but with a more careful glance you can probably find something to like, if you’re into AOR. Michael Kiske’s voice sounds, to me at least, a little weird outside of Helloween and they’re definitely moments where it approaches his vocal stylings with his old band and others that remind me of his solo albums.

The problem however, is not in the vocals but in the music. Not that there is any bad musicianship on the album, simply the fact that the songs are compositions of others apart from the musicians, I find that the songs are performed without any real flame by the participants, something that a guitarist e.g. can observe in any of the guitar solos. Also, apart from certain exceptions, such as “I'd Die For Your” that closes the album, their is an obvious lack of arrangement.

To round this up, if you like AOR then this album deserves a bit of your attention. If you’re expecting the much-advertised return of Michael Kiske to the hard rock/metal spectre, then you’ll be disappointed by the majority of tracks on this album, but the first and last song will remind you of what an amazing voice Kiske has, when he wants to use it right…