Chinawhite are a good acquintance of BM. In the beginning of the Nineties, this band supplied us with several nice demo-tapes with powerful, melodic rock, comparable to Foreigner, Toto, Van Halen, Marillion and Rush. It has been rather quiet lately with respect to Chinawhite, untill now. The band sent us their mini debut CD ‘A Dragon’s Birth’. It contains four compositions, all recorded in 1995 and not put onto disk until 1997. To me, the music on this CD-single is alright. The cover is well taken care of, the musicians handle their instruments well and with Don Feltges the band has got a good singer. Chinawhite’s music is not entirely original, but that doesn’t really matter. The CD-single kicks off with ‘Rock and Water’ – also featured on a demotape ‘When dreams Unite’ from 1992. This catchy song has strong singing, which stuck into my head for several days. Also very interesting are the Rush-like guitar and bass breaks in the middle section. ‘The Revolution By Night’ starts off in a rather simple manner, but evolves into a nice composition with a catchy guitar solo by Peter Cox. The third piece is an oldie, ‘Big Money’, proceeded by a short keyboard intro (note, the intro is played on guitars only…). Unfortunately, this piece strands because of the many repetitions, which makes it rather amateurish. This is not the case with closing song ‘The Lurker’, which shows Chinawhite at their best. I can only hope that the band produces more pieces like ‘The Lurker’, pieces with enough room for every member, pieces with enough interesting piece and breaks, pieces that justify a full, mature CD release. Labels where are you ! (dirksen de raker)