Aldo Nova is back after 21 years since his last studio album, ‘Nova’s Dream’.  And it has been way too long in my opinion.  I discovered Aldo’s music back in the very early 80’s with his song and video for “Fantasy” and I have every album he has put out (I haven’t bought this one…yet!).  When I heard he was releasing a new album I was so excited. I was thinking Steve Perry and Aldo Nova back after all this time, life is good.

Well, then I heard the album was a re-imagining of a handful of songs from his debut album, ‘Aldo Nova’, including “Fantasy”.  There was going to be one new song, but I was a little worried about the ‘re-imagining’ part.  It worked so well for Bon Jovi with that piece of shit album called ‘This Left Feels Right’.  I was not a fan of that obviously.

Aldo redoing songs from such a classic album (classic to me) was like George Lucas redoing the original Star Wars Trilogy and adding all that unwanted and unnecessary crap into it that it was so stupid. And guess what, the redoing of all these songs is just that.  He added so many electronic effects and extra guitar parts that I feel it took away from the heart of the songs.

And vocally…it has been 21 years since his last album and his vocals have changed.  He can’t hit those same notes even though at times he tried and it didn’t work.  Now, it really isn’t all bad.  There are some shining guitar parts in it as the man can still play a bad ass guitar.  He hasn’t lost a step there.  Some of the guitar solos are extended as Aldo was trying to capture what it would be like playing it live and that is pretty cool.  My problem is I love that debut album so much any attempt to tweak those songs won’t improve them as they were already perfect.

Before I completely sound like I am bashing this album, there is one new song and I really, really am digging it.  “I’m a Survivor” is a strong song and to me feels like it could have fit on his album “Twitch”.  It has all the same electronic elements and guitar sound and probably would have been a single if it was on that album.  It has a catchy chorus and a strong message of persevering.  Oh yeah, a sweet guitar solo thrown in to push it over the top.  Aldo, give me a full album of this and you would have a winning formula and a stellar review.

I won’t score a track listing as I am only going to listen to 1 song out of all 7 and that is not a good score.  I will score the overall album a “2.0” out of 5 stars as that only seems fitting.  I won’t be listening to this album very often for the 2.0 versions.  I much prefer the original album and in fact, I need to listen that quick to get these versions out of my head.  However, the last song, “I’m A Survivor” will gladly be added to my Aldo Nova library and listened to many times.

Aldo is working on a ‘Rock Opera’ album and that I am looking forward to hearing.  That can’t get here soon enough.  Until next time, have a great day.

And one last thing to George Lucas…Han shot first!!!!