Their sets include an assortment of '80s rock and metal bands, along with some older offerings such as Journey, Styx, and The Eagles. The variety of material they cover is staggering - within one set they can go from Stone Temple Pilots to Devo and then back again to Nickelback.

Max's voice is strong and dynamic. He can sound angry and heavy-rock when needed, but can also pull off a convincing John Mellencamp. Jeff is a prodigy on the guitar; his lightning-fast chord progressions match beat-for-beat with the percussion prerecording they play with their covers, and Jeff likes to bust out an improv guitar jam at least once per set.

On July 1 at Joey T's in McHenry, Last Horizon played four sets of nostalgic '80s and '90s tunes along with three original songs. Their first set began with a keyboard/guitar jam before entering into “Desperado” and some John Mellencamp. Their first original song, “Theresa's Eyes,” featured an incredibly addictive underlying piano melody that complimented the crooning vocals nicely. Their second set highlighted their playful charm, covering “Margaritaville,” “Whip It!,” and “Interstate Love Song,” all before entering into an edgy cover of Nickleback's “This is How You Remind Me.”

By this time into their performance, Max's singing began to show signs of strain. During his performances he never fails to give his all, but this can prove to be slightly counter-productive.

The influence of the 80s is obvious in Last Horizon's music, from the songs and bands they cover to their overall style. The band melded best when covering Van Halen and Guns and Roses, with Max sounding like a much healthier Axle Rose. I would have liked to have heard more synth-pop and perhaps less heavy-metal and hard-rock. Their sets would have also benefited from a little more indie-'90s rock, perhaps some early Radiohead or Broken Social Scene.

Max and Jeff wouldn't have it any other way, though - together for 19 years, they've found a niche playing purely hard offerings from the '70s and the '80s. Like the musical sensibilities of those two decades, Max and Jeff aspire to find progressive sounds and powerful arrangements. Jeff listed the Trans-Siberian Orchestra as one of his favorite musical statements, along with hard-rock staples Queensryche and Van Halen.

When asked about their thoughts on today's music scene, they pointed out that things are better now than they were five years ago - even though that's not saying much. Music still caters to the preteen demographic, Max commented, and Jeff added that music is one of either two extremes - hip-hop or pop. This attitude towards today's music scene doesn't stop Max from listening to Coldplay, Los Lonely Boys, and Maroon 5, who's in his CD player right now.

Last Horizon's debut CD will hopefully be out by the end of the year, and you never know - you might find them at your local Best Buy in the rock/pop section someday.

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