Like Southern soul, album-oriented rock never went away. Everyone involved just got a hell of a lot older. Unlike Southern soul, AOR (also called melodic rock) never bothered updating its sound. The hair’s still big; it’s the airwaves that got small. China Sky was formed as the Bobby Ingram Project in Jacksonville. After some lineup shakeups, the band (now down to three members) signed to CBS. Their self-titled album was a sterling example of power-pomp that opened with a Def Leppard homage (“Turn On The Night”) and concluded with a six-minute Aquanet ballad (“The Last Romantic Warrior”) that liberally mentions “China sky” in the chorus. A combination of transitions shoaled the band’s hopes. Just a few weeks after China Sky’s release, guitarist Bobby Ingram quit to join Molly Hatchet. CBS Records had sold to Sony for a staggering $2 billion the year before, and the new regime didn’t see the point in promoting an act whose key player just defected. And as the ’90s barreled closer, AOR was ceasing to be a commercial force. The remaining members (singer Ron Perry and bassist Richard Smith) saw the signs and packed it in. But in the 2000s, Europe — with its unslakable taste for cheese — came calling. Perry and Smith began hearing from fans across the world who still remembered their one shot at glory. So they assembled a new China Sky, fleshing things out with three new members, including — poetically — Molly Hatchet’s original drummer (and one-time Teen Beat pinup) Bruce Crump. The dolefully-titled II is the same shit, different decade: a dozen punchy, hairsprayed pop/rock tunes, every song clocking in between 3:02 and 4:42, in deference to a rock radio dictum that no longer exists. Less than two months after II’s release, Bruce Crump died, aged 57. “We are still reeling from the sudden passing of our friend and brother in the band, Bruce Crump,” the band posted on Facebook, “but the music he helped create on ‘China Sky II’ continues to gain momentum. ‘One Life’ is number one on the Melodic Net Singlechart FOR THE FOURTH WEEK IN A ROW.”