Soundtrack To Your Life

First time on vinyl for this album. Back in the first season of ABC's reality show Making the Band, before MTV and Sean "Puffy" Combs took over the reigns of the pop group audition show created by "boy band" impresario Lou Pearlman, ABC introduced an angel -- Ashley Angel to be precise -- to the world. All blonde spiky hair and bright blue eyes, 19-year-old Angel had a sweet voice and an even sweeter smile. For two years Angel lived his saccharine dream as a boy band superstar of O-Town. Despite a minor hit with "Liquid Dreams," the group quickly dropped from the public's consciousness, disbanding in 2001. Five years later, Ashley Parker Angel -- the Parker stands for older and wiser -- returned with another reality show, MTV's There and Back, chronicling his struggle to record his first solo debut album. Gone are the cheesy dance moves and shiny metallic shirts; in their place are a respectable mop of shaggy hair and, surprisingly, some great melodic rock. In fact, the aptly titled Soundtrack to Your Life, born out of a reality show that saw Angel toil with creative and financial woes as well as the birth of his son, Lyric, is a tart and heartfelt collection of '70s singer/songwriter and power pop. Put together, those influences end up falling somewhere between the earnest balladeering of the Goo Goo Dolls and the driving rock of the All-American Rejects.