_{“For The Greater Good” is the second album from Swedish band Saffire and was released through AOR Heaven on 30th November. The album’s opening track “The Great Escape” was included on the Friday NI Rocks Show on 4th December (available via the On Demand player for a few weeks - http://www.rockradioni.co.uk/on-demand-player.html - the Show uploaded on 3rd Dec). The band formed in 2005; releasing their first EP in 2010 and debut album “From Ashes To Fire” in 2013.}

_{The founding members of Saffire are Victor Olsson on guitar, Dino Zuzic on keyboard and Magnus Carlsson on bass (not to be confused with Magnus Karlsson, the guitarist in Primal Fear who is involved in many other projects). Anton Roos (a winner of the Swedish Drum Solo Championship) joined the band on drums in 2007 and singer Tobias Janssen replaced the original vocalist in 2010, ahead of the first EP release.}

_{“For The Greater Good” is one of those releases where, to my mind anyway, the AOR Heaven label might be misleading. Not being a fan of sticking genre labels on bands, I’m not really an expert on definitions but to me AOR isn’t what Saffire are about. There’s an extract from the press release that refers to Saffire as “a band based on old school melodic hard rock and heavy metal but add a modern twist” that probably describes their sound better.}

_{There are 11 tracks on the album, all written by Olsson and Janssen. In addition to “The Great Escape”, my own favourites would be “Casters of the First Stone”, “For The Greater Good”, “Dandelion’s Shame”, “Shadowland” and “Ghost Town”.}

_{For more info check out https://www.facebook.com/saffiresweden/ or http://saffire.se/}

_{About “NI Rocks Recommends”}

_{The simple idea behind “NI Rocks Recommends” is to acknowledge and promote some of the great music being submitted to Rock Radio NI. I'll not be giving marks or ratings or analyzing the tracks in great detail; just telling you something about the artist and the album. It’s a personal recommendation, not a traditional “review”!}

_{My musical tastes cover most things rock; from the not too melodic to the not too heavy. The albums that I’ll be recommending are merely those that I would buy myself and which you’ll be hearing played on my shows on Rock Radio NI.}

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