Category: Album Review

Takara – ‘Eternal Faith’ (1993) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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The story of Jeff Scott Soto and Takara starts way back in 1985 when Jeff met Neal Grusky who is a founding member of Takara. They quickly became friends through their mutual love of music. Neal started Takara in 1987, but it wasn’t until November 1988 that Jeff really got involved. He agreed to help produce a set of demos for the band. When current lead sing, Mark Del Papa, couldn’t do the vocals due to drug issues, Jeff jumped in and sang on the demos as well. The demos were strictly to help the band find a lead singer. Now, where have we heard that before??? Oh yeah, Panther.

Jeff’s job was to produce and do the scratch vocals. They would bring in other singers to sing as well and Jeff would help produce and mix those. This went on for a number of years and they had done demos from 1987 to 1991. There was no intention to release these, it was strictly to get the band moving forward. Also, Jeff had never produced or mixed before so it was a trial by fire process.

Somehow, the tapes wound up with EMI/Toshiba in Japan and the label really liked them and showed interest in the band. But there was a catch…isn’t there always. They didn’t want to release an album with the other singers, they only liked Jeff’s versions and would only release it with Soto as the singer. Neal went back to his friend and Jeff being the good friend he was, agreed to let that happen as he didn’t want his friend to lose the label deal.

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Aerosmith – ‘Music From Another Dimension’ (2012) – Album Review (The Aerosmith Collection Series)

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Our last review from Aerosmith was a live album from 2005. We jump all the way to 2012 for our next review which is pretty big gap between albums. Don’t fret though as they did release a couple live albums and 3 greatest hits albums during that time and honestly, I don’t own any of them. Since this is the Aerosmith Collection Series, we will stick to what is actually in my collection so here we are.

The band had a ton of issues between 2005 and 2012. They entered the studio to record a new album back in 2007, 2008 or 2009 (take your pick based on interviews) and nothing came of it. They toured, but they were plagued with health issues from several members and lots of shows were canceled. Tyler wanted to do solo work and seem to have stepped away for a little while. While out, Tyler became addicted to painkillers as a result of his knee injury and had to go to rehab. The remaining members were ready to replace Tyler as the singer and started auditioning new singers. Yeah, that didn’t go over well as lawsuits were filed, punches thrown and all sorts of mayhem over the years.

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You Picked It! – David Bowie – ‘Blackstar’ (2016) – Album Review

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Alright…You Picked It! And this one wasn’t even close. The winner had the first vote and got passed, but ended up winning in the end. The winner was David Bowie’s Blackstar which was his last album before he died and one I have never listened to in its entirety. Here are the results.

  1. David Bowie – ‘Blackstar’ – 9 votes
  2. Aldo Nova – ‘The Life & Times of Eddie Gage’ – 7 votes
  3. Steve Vai – ‘Passion & Warfare’ – 2 votes
  4. Journey – ‘Raised on Radio’ – 2 Vote
  5. Beyonce – ‘Lemonade’ – Sadly, 0 votes

Thanks to all for participating. The June choices will be up on Saturday!

DAVID BOWIE – ‘BLACKSTAR’:

When I saw this won, I was really worried about reviewing it because Bowie is very intimidating to me. Also, this was a well received album by the critics and fans as well as the fact he died two days after the release of the album which was released on January 8, 2016. David recorded this album in secret and surprised everyone with its release. He knew this was his last album and that makes it a really special album so I don’t want to hate it and bash his last efforts. Thankfully, that was not the case. It did take me a while to warm up to it, but after a couple spins I really started digging this album.

The album had a lot of experimental art rock elements, but the main thing I noticed was that it had a lot of Jazz elements as well and doing research I now know why. The band consisted a lot of New York local jazz musicians including saxophonist Donny McCaslin, pianist Jason Lindner, bassist Tim Lefebvre and drummer Mark Guiliana; guitarist Ben Monder joined the ensemble for the final sessions, while James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem contributed percussion.  The musicianship on this album is second to none and I thoroughly enjoyed every moment.

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Matt Nathanson – ‘Slow, But Speeding’ E.P. – Album Review

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In my endless search for music I don’t have by Matt Nathanson, I always get excited when I find something that I didn’t actually have and this is one of those items. In 2007, Matt released a promotional E.P. on CD called ‘Slow, But Speeding’ for his upcoming 2007 album ‘Some Mad Hope’. I have that album, so why is this E.P. worth getting if it is a promo of the album is something you might ask and I will tell you . There are 3 songs on here and they are all acoustic versions of the new songs on the albums. This one is not extremely rare to get and not overly pricey either which makes it even better. The songs were recorded at Play Records in San Francisco, CA and they are stripped down to their bare essence with just an acoustic guitar and Matt.

The first track is “Gone” as well as the songs on here are written by Matt Nathanson and Mark Weinberg. What I love about Matt is when he sings he really feels the songs. They feel personal to him and a part of him and that is even more prevalent when he does them acoustic. This one has Matt giving up on love after his most recent heartbreak. He is really aching and feels so lost and you can hear the heartache.

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Cheap Trick – ‘The Epic Archive, Vol. 1 (1975-1979)’ (2015) – Album Review (The Cheap Trick Collection Series)

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After the last studio album, 2009’s ‘The Latest’, Cheap Trick went a little quiet. The did release a a live album, ‘Sgt Pepper Live’ in 2009, but that album is not in my Collection and this is “The Collection Series” so it won’t get reviewed at this point. Then in 2010, Bun E. Carlos stopped touring and he ended up suing the band in 2013 as they weren’t allowing him to record or participate in anything with the band. The lawsuit was settled and the band continued on without Carlos as a 3-Piece. Of note, Rick Nielsen’s son, Dax, has filled in for Bun E. as the drummer. And in 2014, they did release a compilation album called ‘The 70’s’, but again, not in the collection.

So, what is in the Collection that can be reviewed next? I will tell you. We have ‘The Epic Archive, Vol. 1 through Vol. 3 to review that were all released in 2015. All three albums were released on November 27, 2015 digitally. There was no physical product at the time. That has since been corrected as they eventually did release these on vinyl for Record Store Day on three separate occasions. I was lucky enough to get all 3. We will start with ‘The Epic Archive, Vol. 1 (1975-1979) since that is the first one in the series.

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Biker Mice From Mars – Soundtrack (1993) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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You are probably wondering what is a Biker Mice From Mars. I know I was when I heard of this album with Jeff Scott Soto on vocals. What I came to find out was that Biker Mice From Mars was a cartoon that actually ran in the U.S. from 1993-1996 and ran for 3 seasons with 65 episodes. I am not sure what planet I was on, but apparently it wasn’t this one as I have never, ever heard of this one before.

And to my surprise the cast voicing these characters were huge stars in the 90’s. Most importantly the cast of Beverly Hills 90210 voiced a ton as it Ian Ziering, Brian Austin Greene, Jason Priestly, Luke Perry, Tori Spelling and Jennie Garth all voiced a character. I wonder why Shannon Doherty didn’t voice one. Now if those weren’t the stars you would know. It also had Mark Hamill, Brad Garrett, Peter Strause, CCH Pounder, Malcolm McDowell, Leah Remini, Rob Paulsen and Jess Harnell of the Animaniacs and the band Rock Sugar.

What is the premise of the show? Let me let Wikipedia sum it up for you…“The show follows three anthropomorphic mice motorcyclists named Throttle, Modo, and Vinnie who escape a war on their home planet Mars before arriving to defend the Earth from the evil that destroyed their homeland (the Plutarkians) and to one day return to Mars.” There is a lot more to it than that, but that is all we need to know as we are here about the soundtrack and not the actual show.

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Aerosmith – ‘Rockin’ The Joint’ (2005) – Album Review (The Aerosmith Collection Series)

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Back in 2002, the band was towards the end of their Just Push Play Tour and the band played a real intimate show at The Joint at The Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, NV. The band played more deep cuts then normal and recorded the show. The album was finally released over three years later on October 25, 2005 and went to #24 on the Billboard Charts. The band was the still the original guys with Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Brad Whitford, Tom Hamilton and Joey Kramer…and there was an additional player for this show and that was Russ Irwin on keyboards. The album was produced by Steven and Marti Frederiksen.

The set list for the show was an astounding 26 songs and out of those there were some great deep cuts they hadn’t played in a long while, but the bad thing was the whole show wasn’t released. The album release only had 11 songs and you would get 2 more if you had the Japanese Edition or the Target Edition as well. That is a crying shame and a massive defect with this release. I am not sure I understand why they didn’t release the whole show. Big mistake.

My copy of the album is the Dual Disc version with the CD on one side and a DVD on the other. The DVD side is only the Enhanced PCM Stereo audio of the album on DVD, but not the actual show. It also has 4 Special Live Video Performances and some Exclusive Behind-The-Scenes Footage. There are two exclusive bonus tracks on the DVD that are the bonus tracks on the Target Exclusive Edition of the CD. The case of the CD is shaped a little different than the normal CD. There is a little button on the front that you push to open the disc. It is a cool version to have in the collection.

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Cheap Trick – ‘The Latest’ (2009) – Album Review (The Cheap Trick Collection Series)

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We are now to the band’s 16th Studio album. The album was released on June 23, 2009 and only went to #78 on the Billboard Charts and sadly sales only reached 24,000 records as of 2016 which is an absolute shame as this is a hidden gem. The Latest is the last studio album to feature all four members of the original band of Robin Zander, Rick Nielsen, Tom Petersson and Bun E. Carlos. In 2010, Bun E. Carlos stopped touring with the band and it led to him not recording with the band. There were lawsuits back and forth and it was ugly. But that is another discussion for another day.

Cheap Trick really lost their way in the mid to late 80’s and early 90’s. But with ‘Woke Up With a Monster’ up to ‘Rockford’, Cheap Trick was slowly remembering who they were. With ‘The Latest’, the band was back in full form and putting out their best album in years. Cheap Trick was back baby, but sadly, no one knew it. This was the Cheap Trick sound I loved. They band sounded refreshed, rejuvenated and reborn. ‘The Latest’ is the best we’ve seen from them in a very long time.

The version of the album I have is a digipak CD with a fold out cover (as seen below). There was no booklet inside as everything was printed on the reverse sides of the flaps below. One thing cool the band did for this release is they released a version of the album on 8-Track. This was 2009 and 8-Tracks were not a blip on anyone’s radar (except maybe Tim Durling).

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Axel Rudi Pell – ‘The Ballads’ (1993) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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After Jeff Scott Soto had finished his vocals on the ‘Eternal Prisoner’ album for Axel Rudi Pell, he went back to the states to continue to work with his band Slam. Then it was on to work on the next Talisman album ‘Genesis’. But his obligations weren’t done with Axel. Axel wanted to do an album full of nothing but ballads so Jeff was brought back in April 1993 to finish up some work on several songs to be included on the album. Jeff was only on 4 of the 10 songs, two were instrumentals, two from Rob Rock with one from Karl Holthaus both previous singers of Axel’s.

The album was released on September 7, 1993 and I guess it was successful as Axel did a total of five of these Ballad compilations. ‘The Ballads’ release had a mixture of previously released tracks, some previously unreleased tracks and even a couple covers. It is a lot of ballads to have on an album. It caused a mixture of reactions. Some metal fans were turned off because the album was nothing but ballads, however, you had a section of non-metal people that were now introduced to Axel’s music because it was all ballads. Heck it was the ballads that probably brought a lot of women in to the Glam music scene anyway…that and the fact they wanted to know the secrets on how the guys got their hair so big and poofy. But lets talk about the music instead of the hair.

“You Want Love” opens the album and was one of the new tracks recorded by Jeff Scott Soto for this release. Opens with acoustic guitars and then Soto comes in singing in a soft falsetto. The chorus brings harmonies and the bass and drum. From here on out, the tempo stays relatively consistent. Jeff does sound great, I’ll give him that, but the song is a little dull as it is too same-same sounding throughout. Even the solo is a little lifeless and boring.

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Kiss – ‘The Original Wicked Lester Sessions’ – Album Review (The Bootleg Series)

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We all know Kiss was started by Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Peter Criss and Ace Frehley.  But did you know about the band prior to Kiss?  It all started with Gene (Chaim Witz) and Paul (Stanley Eisen) in a band called Rainbow with Gene’s friend Stephen Coronel.  Paul was the third member and then they brought in a drummer named Joe Davidson. This band didn’t last long at all and hell, the drummer even a shorter time as he was quickly replaced with Tony Zarella.  They only played one show before they had to drop the name Rainbow because that name was already being used by some other band (and no, not the Richie Blackmore band).

And that is how Wicked Lester was born.  After only a couple shows as Wicked Lester, they were approached by a label and were given the chance to record some demos. After listening to those demos, the label decided that Stephen was not good enough and had to be fired. And since Gene and Paul the upstanding citizens they are, they fired Stephen.  I guess you do whatever it takes to make it in this business.  Ron Leejack was then brought in for guitar duties and it was time to record the album.

Now the album would take about a year to complete and upon receiving the album and hearing it, the label were not quite thrilled with it…okay, they hated it.  Hated it so much, they shelved it and it was never released.  Well, never in a full, pure album form.  It has been leaked out as a bootleg and that is what we have here.

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