Author: 2loud2oldmusic

Scorpions – ‘Rock Believer’ (2022) – Album Review (The Scorpions Collection Series)

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A couple years after ‘Return to Forever’ (released in 2015), the band released another greatest hits compilation. Sadly, I don’t have the album in my collection and I need to as there are some new songs and previously unreleased tracks on there. So, instead we jump to the next album which was released 7 years after ‘Return to Forever’ and that is the longest gap between any studio album in their history. The album is “Rock Believer’ and it was released on February 22, 2022 which is the band’s 19th Studio album and it is 50 years after the release of their debut album back in 1972 ‘Lonesome Crow’. Wow, a 50 year career is pretty impressive and they have a lot to show for it.

The album sees the main the band relatively unchanged with one big exception. Gone is James Kottak on drums as he was fired back in 2016. On board now is former Motorhead drummer, Mikkey Dee. This is first studio album with the band. The rest of the crew is still around, Klaus Meine, Rudolf Schenker, Matthias Jabs and Pawel Maciwoda. And the band had been hinting at an album for years, but it took awhile to be inspired enough to record. Back in 2019, the writing process started, but a little thing called Covid-19 slowed things down immensely. Plans were to record in Los Angeles with Greg Fidelman, but the Pandemic forced the band to work with the producer remotely using Zoom while the band was in Germany and Greg was not. That didn’t work out well and plans were scrapped. They wound up working with Hans-Martin Buff and produced it themselves.

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The Complete Far Side: 1980-1994 by Gary Larson – Book Review

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When I was a kid, I loved the comic strips and when my dad would finish the paper, I would grab it to head over to the comics. Especially on Sunday when there was a huge section of strips to read. You had Peanuts, Beatle Bailey, Family Circle and tons more. But as I got older, my humor got a little darker and I would race over to read Calvin & Hobbes and most especially The Far Side by Gary Larson. They were only one panel strips with humor that was so absurd at times that it made you think and then laugh. I don’t know if my parents got the humor, but I sure did.

Gary retired from the strip way back in 1994 going out in his prime. I guess he felt he might as well quit while he was ahead and boy was he. I think he was way ahead of his time as the humor to me was really subtle and advance and not like anything out there at all. So, when he called it quits, it made me a little sad as a childhood memory was being taken away and lost forever.

The Far Side ran for over 15 years and by the end was running in over 1,900 newspapers….do kids today know what a newspaper is…doubtful. And the series was so popular, he sold a series of books including a set of the comics. Those books have sold 45 million copies. Gary Larson was a rock star!! I will admit, I didn’t buy all these books because when I started feeling nostalgic for the series, there were too many to buy. Then my prayers were answered and a complete series was released. In August 2003, my wish came true and ‘The Complete Far Side: 1980-1994’ was finally released and I could get them all in one set.

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Joel Hoekstra’s 13 – ‘Dying to Live’ (2015) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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Joel Hoekstra might be one of the best hired guns in the business. From his time in Night Ranger, to Whitesnake, to Cher, to Trans-Siberian Orchestra (TSO) to now Revolution Saints. And in between he has done several solo albums of instrumental music. This time, he wanted to showcase his songwriting abilities and so he started a new project called Joel Hoekstra’s 13 and he brought along some heavy hitters. Helping on this album were none other than Tony Franklin (Blue Murder, The Firm, Whitesnake) on bass, Vinny Appice (Last in Line, Heaven & Hell, Dio & Black Sabbath) on bass and then on vocals he brought in the great Russell Allen (Symphony X, Adrenaline Mob, Allen/Lande, TSO) to handle the vocals. But the reason for the post is the final connection with Jeff Scott Soto.

Jeff was brought in to do backing vocals, but Jeff being the powerhouse and force of nature he is, ended up singing about half the songs on the album. Yes, he is that good. Now, Joel wrote all the songs including music and lyrics which is why this has his name stamped on it. He did have help on one song that he did with Russell called “Changes”. This has been treated as a solo project, but really this is something more. Heck, in fact all of these people would be back for second album a few years later (except Jeff would be only backing vocals on that one – and we wont’ review if for this series as a result.

Even with all these major players on the album, there is still some more help brought in. We get the great Derek Sherinian on keyboards, Charlie Zeleny on percussion and Dave Eggar on the cello for the final song on the album “What We Believe”. And that isn’t all. He also wrangled in Toby Hitchcock (Pride of Lions) and Chloe Lowery (TSO) to do some duets with Mr. Soto. This line-up is pretty damn impressive so the music has to be good…right? Ahhh…you are damn straight!! I missed this album when it came out, not realizing Mr. Soto was on it and if I did, I would’ve been all over it. But I am going to say something that surprises even me, my favorite parts of this album aren’t Jeff Scott Soto…no sir. They are Russell Allen. I forget how awesome he is vocally and this stuff really makes him shine. Alright, let’s get to it, shall we.

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My Sunday Song – “Ball And Chain” by Aldo Nova

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For My Sunday Song #354, we are talking another ballad by Aldo called “Ball And Chain” off his debut 1982 album ‘Aldo Nova’. The album came out on April Fool’s Day in the States but it was no joke. The double platinum selling album was huge for Aldo. His song “Fantasy” made the Top 40, but that wasn’t necessarily the best song on the album. One thing Aldo can do is ballads and “Ball And Chain” was one I gravitated towards almost immediately. Aldo wrote and played guitars and keyboards on it as well.

Lyrically, the song is about a love gone dead. The guy sits around waiting for the girl to come back to him. That love he feels weighs him down like a ball and chain as he can’t get over her and he just wants to hear her voice one more time. He wants to hear her say that she still loves him and so he sits, painfully, by the phone waiting for her and yet she never calls. How miserable must he have been to wait so long…he needs some help!!

Musically, it is saturated with keyboards/piano as Aldo loves those synths, but it fits the song so well. The keyboards are almost wailing at times as if they are crying as the hurt so much not hearing from the woman he loves. It is pretty cool effect. Aldo’s guitar solo matches the sound of the keyboards and he just wails away on those notes and makes them cry as well. Aldo sings as if he is feeling the loneliness of his situation and he captures the lyrics so well. And that last “Ball & Chain” vocal sees Aldo hold out the note as long as he can and it ends the song perfectly.

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Friday New Releases – March 31, 2023

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We are at the end of the month already. March just flew by and the April Showers are about to be upon us. Before we get to that, we have another stack of new releases for you and we are close to 40 this week so hopefully you will find something to listen to this week. Me, not so much. Nothing really excites me this week so I will try and do catch up on other things I’ve missed so far this year. Let me know what you want to hear this week or what we may have missed. Thanks for stopping by each and ever week and I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

  • 81UKohVgBYL._AC_UY436_FMwebp_QL65_  The Who – The Who With Orchestra: Live at Wembley (feat. Isobell Griffiths Orchestra) – (UMR / Universal Music)
  • 81XOoHWxO0L._AC_UY436_FMwebp_QL65_  Last in Line – Jericho – (Orange Glow LLC / EarMusic)
  • 71TSJDxSpoL._SX522_  The New Pornographers – Continue as a Guest – (Merge Records)
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March 2023 Purchases – Vinyl & CDs

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We are already at the end of March and can’t believe three months in to the year already as well. Time does fly. But it doesn’t fly fast enough that we can’t do a monthly summary of purchases here at 2 Loud 2 Old Music. And this month was another good one even though the vinyl purchases were down and overall purchases were down as well. I didn’t actually get out to a real record store this month so I will try and make up for that in April.

The month started off with Frontiers Records updating their $5 CD sale and adding a bunch more albums to the list. I, of course, took advantage of that sale. I was able to pick up albums from Inglorious, Night Ranger and Jorn as well as a live Blu-Ray from Dokken. All great stuff.

And then my wife and daughter wanted to go to 2nd & Charles as they had a book sale where you buy 5 books, you get 5 free…Sadly, there was not a CD sale at the time, but it didn’t stop me from picking up some great music while I was there. I did get 5 CDs, but since the next 5 weren’t free, I stuck with only my 5. I picked up some Metallica, Tesla, Halestorm, Aldo Nova (which I had already on vinyl) and the last great Queensryche album in my book, ‘Promised Land’.

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Scorpions – ‘Return To Forever’ (2015) – Album Review (The Scorpions Collection Series)

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The band’s 18th Studio album was a long time in the making. The work started back in 2011 as they were throwing around ideas for new projects to do. One of those ideas was to go through their old catalog and find unreleased songs. Songs that dated back their heyday. The found enough songs to fit 3 CDs and then those CDs were sent to the producers, Mikael Nord Andersson and Martin Hansen. From their the band kept narrowing down and I believe in 2012, the recorded demos of around 12 of those songs and had intentions of recordings 6 more to give them 18 to choose from. The goal was to end up with 12-15 tracks from the unreleased tracks to use for an album.

Well, one thing led to another and they also worked on new songs as well. All in all, by the time the album came out, between new tracks and old tracks, they actually ended up with 19 tracks that have been released for the album. The standard edition only had 12, which is what we have here with the Vinyl. However, the US Deluxe Edition actually has all 19 songs so no need getting the Japanese Edition for this one. That is a ton of songs to sit through which is why I am focusing on the vinyl edition and keeping it simple.

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SOTO – ‘Inside the Veritgo’ (2015) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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Jeff Scott Soto has been around for over 30 years now and he started out singing for some heavy bands like Yngwie Malmsteen and Axel Rudi Pell. Then he was more melodic with bands like Talisman, Eyes and W.E.T. and he evened funked things up with his solo albums on occasion, but he has always liked the heavy stuff. For his next project, it wasn’t another solo album, but instead it was a new metal band called SOTO. Hmmm…where did he come up with that name? Jeff has said this is a working band and not a side project and will be around for a long while and there is definitely a band. In SOTO are of course, Jeff, but you also get Jorge Salan on guitars, BJ on guitars and keys, David Z (Of ZO2) on bass and Edu Cominato on drums.

However, there are so many guests and extra musicians on this album, that I’m not sure you can really count this as a band album as the “band” isn’t on every song. Now, that doesn’t take away from anything on the album, I’m just saying I don’t really see this particular SOTO album as a band more of as a project. The album came out on January 30, 2015, but I don’t see a physical release of the album in the States so they only had digital. My copy of the album is actually from Mexico and is a digipack. No bonus or nothing extra, but I will take what I can get. Let’s jump right and get in to the meat of it all as the music is why we are here.

The first track is “Final Say” and it is written by Jeff Scott Soto and Adrenaline Mob member Mike Orlando who does all the instruments on this song (see, no band members but JSS). And like I said above, that doesn’t take away from the music as this song kicks some major ass. The guitars are heavy, the drums are thunderous and Soto is aggressive and lethal with the vocals. An explosive opening that tells you right away this is a heavier, darker JSS and I’m all for it.

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My Sunday Song – “Always Be Mine” by Aldo Nova

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For My Sunday Song #353, we are going to discuss the ballad “Always Be Mine” off Aldo Nova’s second album ‘Subject…Aldo Nova’…but I just call it ‘Subject’. The album was released on September 30, 1983 and was a very loose concept with a whole apocalyptic vision of the world. This was the 2nd single off the album but didn’t even make the Hot 100 in the U.S. which it should as this is one of the great ballads of the decade in my book. The album didn’t get a ton of press but it did eventually go Gold about 11 years after it’s release.

The song is about a breakup. A very hard break up of two people that still love each other, but they’ve played so many games, shed so many tears that it probably should be over. The guy in the song still loves her and in his heart, she’ll always be his. He is pleading with her to give it another shot, to stop the games, stop wearing the masks and just talk heart to heart and work things out. It is a little heartbreaking at times.

Musically, the song is beautifully done with Aldo on keyboards, guitars and vocals. Aldo likes to do a lot of the stuff himself. It starts off with an electronic drum beat that is followed by the keyboards…a lot of keyboards. But there is a tenderness to it all and the music has such great melody and the guitar playing…man Aldo can certainly play guitar. He is highly underrated. Aldo’s vocals pull at the heartstrings as he conveys all the love and pain the guy is feeling as he tries to win his girl back. The song sounds like the 80’s, but you know, it still works for me and is still as powerful today as it was when I first heard it back in 1983…40 years ago…damn…I’m getting old.

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Friday New Releases – March 24, 2023

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Welcome to another Friday New Releases. We have a handful today, not as many as in week’s past, but they all can’t be fully loaded. This week I have a must have and it is on order but actually won’t arrive until May so streaming it will be. If you follow the site, you know I am a huge Needtobreathe fan and I love the vocal talents of lead singer Bear Rinehart. Bear has a side project / solo career with his project called Wilder Woods. This is their second album and I am looking forward to what he may have in store for me. I am sure I’ll check out Fall Out Boy and my kids might play that Luke Combs record so I’ll probably hear that one too. Let me know what you want to hear this week and what we may have missed. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!!

  • 91-pmHQ9Q1L._AC_UY436_FMwebp_QL65_  Wilder Woods – Fever / Sky – (Dualtone Music Group)
  • 91zwIGCiWTL._AC_UY436_FMwebp_QL65_  Fall Out Boy – So Much (For) Stardust – (Fall Out Boy)
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