Tag: Frontiers Records

W.E.T. – ‘Rise Up’ (2013) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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W.E.T. includes Robert Sall of the band Work of Art (The “W”); Erik Martensson of the band Eclipses (The “E”) and Jeff Scott Soto of the band Talisman (The “T”). All three bands are Swedish bands and all on Frontiers so it made it easy to bring these three guys together. They were originally going to be a one-off project, never tour and never do another album. Well, they did a small tour and here we are now reviewing their 2nd album, ‘Rise’. And this time, they are giving more credit to Robben Black and Magnus Henriksson as full time members. Both guys are also from the band Eclipse along with Erik.

The album came out on Frontiers Records since it was all Serafino Perugino’s idea anyway. It was released on February 22, 2013 and was actually produced by Mr. Erik Martennsson himself. Along with the songwriting, guitar playing, bass playing, keyboards, he was rather busy on this album. But Erik wasn’t alone on the songwriting as Robert Sal was heavily involved as well as Jeff Scott Soto and Magnus Henriksson. Come to think of it, everyone who did songwriting on the debut, pretty much contributed here as well. The sound on this album didn’t change, it is pure 80’s melodic rock or AOR if you want. Think Journey, Bon Jovi and the like and you pretty much have an idea of what this album will sound like.

The album opens with “Walk Away”, a lusciously sounding lick and then some heavy drums goes right in to a groove that brings it all together. Soto’s vocals are so smooth and slick you are transported to another era. With a hook that has you singing along as you ride down the rode with this beautiful melodic rock extravaganza.

Then we get the delicious “Learn to Live Again” which is a duet between Erik and Jeff and it is nothing short of delightful. You get more of the same hummable, singable magic as they figure, if it ain’t broke, why fix it. Jeff, again, sounds fantastic with his almost falsetto singing at times, and with this wicked riffs and a killer solo backing him up, it is more greatness.

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Jeff Scott Soto – ‘Live at Firefest 2008’ (2010) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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Firefest is festival in Europe that came about after the end of another festival called The Gods of AOR. Firefest started in 2004 and it was bigger and even better than the Gods festival. Jeff Scott Soto performed at the Gods festival in 2002, and even released the show on a live CD/DVD. Jeff got the call again to do the festival in 2008 and he said Yes, obviously or this discussion would be ridiculous.

It wasn’t easy for Jeff because at the time of the festival, he was in the middle of rehearsals for the Trans-Siberian Orhcestra’s annual Winter Tour. TSO rehearsed 12 hours a day and Jeff was probably exhausted, but he jumped on a plane on a Friday in the U.S and landed in London by Saturday morning. He had to rush to Nottingham and meet his band. Luckily, it was his band so it was Howie Simon, Gary Schutt and Dave Dziaklak, but they hadn’t played in over about year and had like an hour to rehearse and get ready for the show. Did they pull it off…well, of course they did! They are professionals. It is a great show and another great live album from Jeff.

But…I have a major problem with this release and it isn’t the quality of the show as Jeff sounds amazing and the band is tight and all is good. It is the fact that this setlist is almost identical to Jeff’s last live release ‘One Night in Madrid’. Every song on here was played at that show in this order. The only difference is that the Madrid show had more songs (and was a totally killer show). I feel like I just reviewed this show and not really sure what new I can say about it. I could basically cut & paste that review here, delete out the songs that aren’t on here and BOOM!…the review and you probably wouldn’t know the difference.

So what I will do is walk through the little differences between the shows so I at least give you something different. Like the Madrid show, this one kicks off with the opening track “21st Century” from his latest album ‘Beautiful Mess’, but the big difference is when Madrid goes in to the next song “Colour My XTC” you get the whole song while her you get a small prelude portion before going in to the great “Soul Divine”. One of the highlights on this and the other live show is “Our Song” from his latest album. Jeff sounds amazing on this one and the band nails the song. A power ballad with a lot of Jeff’s powerful vocals. Such a great song.

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W.E.T. – ‘W.E.T.’ (2009) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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After Jeff Scott Soto was let go from Journey, Serafino Perugino of Frontiers Records really wanted Jeff to record an album a pure hard/melodic rock album that is the same vein of Journey. Jeff had different ideas. Jeff had been working on his solo album ‘Beautiful Mess’ which was a far cry from that type of music. However, Jeff agreed but on one condition. That condition was that ‘Beautiful Mess’ was released first…and it was.

Serafino also had the idea of doing a supergroup with Jeff in it. When he heard the first handful of songs, Jeff was really in to it and signed up. It also helped who else was in the band. The original name of the band was called Lost in the Shadows and I don’t think anyone liked that name at all. They come up with the name W.E.T. and that was because who was in the band. That included Robert Sall of the band Work of Art (The “W”); Erik Martensson of the band Eclipses (The “E”) and Jeff Scott Soto of the band Talisman (The “T”). All three bands are Swedish bands and all on Frontiers so it made it easy to bring these three guys together.

The songs were written by a number of writers, but Erik and Robert wrote a majority of the songs and Jeff wrote the lyrics. Magnus Henriksson was also involved with writing along with Johan Becker and Miqeal Persson. On instruments, of course Erik and Robert played, Jeff sang, but there were others. Magnus Henriksson from the band Eclipse played most of the lead guitars and Robben Black, also of Eclipse, played the drums and was actually the fourth member of the band and since he was in Eclipse, technically he is part of the “E” as well. This rag tag group of musicians actually pulled it off and brought one of the best Supergroups Frontiers has put together (and they have put together a lot and most are forgettable).

The band was only going to be a one-off project and were not going to tour. however, the fans wanted more. When Warrant pulled out of the the 2011 Firefest, they asked if W.E.T. would fill in. After a lot of phone calls and changed schedules they made it happen. The next thing you know, they agreed to do another album and the band played on. We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, so let’s dive in to the debut album called ‘W.E.T.’ (simple enough). The album came out on November 29, 2009 in Europe and the U.S. got it some time in 2010. The reception of the album was fantastic and it helped solidify me as a massive Soto fan. In fact, when I met Jeff back in April 2022, I brought 5 CD covers of my favorite Soto albums and this was one of them. As you can see above in the header photo, Jeff signed this CD for me. I think I now have about 7 of the albums signed by him.

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Jeff Scott Soto – ‘Beautiful Mess’ (2009) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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Jeff Scott Soto’s last solo albums was back in 2005 called ‘Lost in the Translation’. A lot had happened to Jeff after that album including Soul Sirkus and his brief stint with Journey as well as the final Talisman album. To say he had been busy would be an understatement. When it was time to sit down and do another solo album, Jeff wanted to shake things up a little sort of like he did with his band Redlist, only not as extreme as that. He had been loving the music of Swedish musician Paulo Mendonca and wanted to work with him on the album. Paulo ended up producing the as well as co-writing 11 of the 14 songs. Heck, Jeff only co-wrote 7 of the 14 songs which means a lot of these songs were written by other people for him to sing. To be honest, that scared me as Jeff has always written all or almost all of the songs on his albums in the past. Plus, Jeff’s normal band of Howie Simon, Alex Papa and Gary Schutt didn’t get to play on the album as it was Jeff and Paulo mostly which is disappointing.

The album was completed and released on February 20, 2009 with Frontiers although they wasn’t originally the expectation since Jeff felt the songs didn’t fit his normal sound. Soto’s sound for this album wasn’t as heavy as ‘Lost in the Translation’ and sort of went the other direction. It was a little bit groovy, a little bit funky, a little bit of soul and even a little bit of pop with maybe a dab of hard rock and a dash of blues. It is really all over the place. Is that good or bad, I guess we will see. The album was titled ‘Beautiful Mess’ and became known as ‘BM’. Wow! That is a disgusting nickname for the album. I don’t usually enjoy my BM’s so do I want to listen to an album nicknamed BM?

The album does kick off with a rock song. “21st Century” is a guitar driven track, however, Jeff’s vocals are more funky and there are modern electronic elements as well. The chorus though is as catchy as you’d expect as he knows how to have a little hook to make you sing along. It definitely sets the pace and lets you know that this isn’t going to be the typical Soto release. It is a little left of center and yet it works and is a great start to the album with its high energy and all around fun sound.

“Cry Me A River” slows the tempo down and brings us more of a funk-infused pop song with some heavy soul influences. The bass line is pretty cool, that funked-up guitar riff is interesting and though Jeff doesn’t go full on singing for the verses, that bridge and chorus are full of that Soto sound. This confirms you aren’t getting what you expect and so far I’m okay with that change.

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Jeff Scott Soto – ‘B-Sides’ (2006) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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We are here with yet another Jeff Scott Soto release and this one is quite unique. It is called ‘B-Sides’ and consists of unreleased tracks, bonus tracks, duets as well as songs used for Tribute albums. It shows as it is an official release from Frontiers Records, but it is very cheap looking. The CDs themselves do say these are “Not For Sale, For Promo Use Only”, but they seem like bootlegs. However, discogs has them on their site and they do not list it as ‘Unofficial’ so everything actually leads me to believe this is a real Frontiers Records release. And yet, the mix of it is not that great as the volume between songs has not been equalized as some songs are louder than others. I don’t know what to think, but I have a copy and I am pretty stoked about it. I am curious as to why the reason behind this product though, so if anyone knows, please let me know in the comments below.

The main reason I’m stoked is that it saves me a ton of money from going and buying all the albums that these songs are on. Most are on an album from another artist that Jeff appears on or Tribute albums where this is probably the only song I would want any way. To have them all in one compilation I would say is big win. One thing that sort of stinks about this is the liner notes on the CD booklet. As you can see from a picture further down the post, there is a fantastic Track List of CD 2 and where the songs originated from, but the left side of the picture does not have the track list for CD 1 and where the songs originated. That is actually a misprint because I have seen pictures of the inner sleeve that have the CD 1 track list breakdown. If the list is there or not, this is still a pretty cool piece in the Soto collection.

The first song was a cassette only bonus track from Jeff’s first band, Panther. “Set Me Free” one of my favorite songs on that album. Soto attacks it with a deeper tone and yet still soars with some high notes. The drumming on it is immense with some great fills. The guitar solo is typical for the time to see how fast he can go, but its great. It definitely takes me back to the 80’s with this one. The next three tracks,”Act of Sympathy”, “Highway to Nowhere” and “Mental Ward” were demos from Jeff’s work with is buddy Gary Schutt on his album ‘Sentimetal’ that Jeff sang lead on. “Act” is pure metal, heavy, dark and Jeff sounds great but a lot of echo…again, this is a demo so not fully polished. Same with “Highway” except it is a little more speed metal, some kickass double bass drum, a real killer track. “Mental Ward” comes off feeling like a leftover track from Jeff’s worker with Biker Mice From Mars soundtrack. It has that same campy, cartoony feel to it.

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Talisman – ‘7’ (2006) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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Talisman didn’t waste any time between their last studio album, ‘Cats & Dogs’, and this one, ‘7’. It is amazing they had time to even do an album as Jeff Scott Soto’s schedule was quite busy with his solo album & touring, his work with Soul SirkUS and then his stint as lead singer of Journey. It was a hectic and crazy schedule. Somehow they did it. The band was back together with Jeff, Marcel Jacob, Frederik Akesson and Jamie Borger and heck, even Pontus Norgren was there to help mix the album. The family was back for one last hurrah as it would turn out as this is the very last studio album by Talisman. A few years later, there were talks of doing another album, but before they could get to it, Marcel Jacob passed away in 2009. This was the end of Talisman and I still get sad thinking of it as I really do enjoy this band.

The original title of the album was called ‘BAR’ which was an inside joke with the band as it stood for ‘Bitter-Angry-Resentful’ which apparently was their outlook on certain life events…who knows if that is true, but I like it. They settled on ‘7’ which is actually the 7th Studio album of the band and they chose the theme of Lucky 7 with all the gambling pictures and Vegas pictures in the album artwork. The album was released on October 20, 2006 by Frontiers Records and they intended to do a tour with the release, but Jeff’s Journey commitment kept getting in the way. The tour was postponed until later in 2007 and by that time, Jeff was let go from Journey as we discussed in the last post. No need to rehash that story. We might as well talk music.

The album kicks off with the most upbeat, happiest guitars with a killer riff at a tempo that will have you flying down the road at 100mph if you are in your car. “Falling” is a modern sounding song while still holding on to the great melodic rock sound. There are keyboards in there (not credited) that really add a great punch to the song. I don’t know how Jamie Borger keeps up the pace he is going pounding those drums. It might be the fastest song they’ve done. Jeff sounds great and the melodies in the song are wonderful. What an astounding opening track.

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Jeff Scott Soto – ‘Essential Ballads’ (2006) – Album Review

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Jeff has only had 3 solo albums up to this point, a couple E.P.’s and that is about it. Yet, we get an entire album of ballads from those releases. Yes, only from his solo albums which leaves out a bunch of great ones from other bands he has been in, but that is okay. This is more than enough. Now, I have no idea whose idea this was…maybe Frontiers Records and maybe Jeff’s which would not be a surprise since when he sang with Axel Rudi Pell, Axel put out entire ballad collections as well. Whatever reason, this is a lot of ballads to take in all at once.

The one good thing about this release is they did add 3 bonus tracks, 2 of which have never been released, so that is always a good thing. That is 16 songs…all ballads…did I mention that it is a lot of a ballads to take in all at once. However, there isn’t a ton of information on the background of this release, so that is all I have for you. As a result, we might as well go through all the songs.

First up from his latest solo release ‘Lost in the Translation’, we get “If This is The End”. It starts off with some slow tempo guitar picking and then Jeff’s vocals softly, yet smoothly float over the verses. Around the 2nd verse, the drums kick in and some electric guitar riffs tossed in. It does pick up a little on the tempo and when it hits that second chorus Jeff’s vocals soar to new heights. Not one of his best ballads, but I like it as it does have a decent solo and is more proof that Jeff can do it all.

Next up is “As I Do 2 U” from his E.P. ‘Believe In Me’. This track is a demo (one of two on here) from a project that never got off the ground called Three Kings. It had Jamie Borger (drummer for Talisman) and Goran Elmquist. It is an acoustic ballad and being a demo, it feels unfinished but it isn’t half bad. A little cheesy, but there are elements there that could’ve turned in to something nice.

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Talisman – ‘Five Men Live’ (2005) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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During the early 2000’s, Marcel Jacob came forward and revealed he was suffering from chronic rheumatism and it would limit his live shows. By 2003, he must have felt up to it because the band played several festivals during that Summer and thankfully for us, a lot of those were recorded. Two shows in particular were captured and were finally released by Frontiers Records in 2005. We got a Live CD and then a DVD set. Today, we are talking about the CD set. We’ll do the DVD next time because it has more than just the shows.

The two shows captured were at Club Mondo in Stockholm, Sweden in August 2003 and the second show was from the Sweden Rock Festival from June 2003. This would be the 2nd Sweden Rock Festival live show we’ve been given from the band. The line-up was interesting as the band was usually a 4-piece band. This time we have the return of the great axeman, Fredrik Akesson as Pontus Norgren had left. The other interesting was they added a fifth member with Howie Simon on guitar. Howie at the time was Soto’s solo band’s guitarist and friend. They really brought the music and delivered two great shows so let us get to them.

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Soul SirkUS – ‘World Play’ (2004/2005) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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Soul SirkUS started originally as a project called PlanetUS which had Neal Schon, Deen Castronovo, Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony. They demoed a couple songs, but it ended abruptly when Sammy and Michael returned to their small side gig called Van Halen. Neal and Deen wanted to continue so they needed a singer. Then in January 2004 at the NAMM Convention in Anaheim, California. Neal had heard of Jeff Scott Soto thanks to Andrew McNiece at Melodicrock.com who was good friends with Jeff and mentioned it to Neal. At the NAMM Convention, Neal and Jeff met and jammed and the relationship between the two was born.

They pulled in the great bass player Marco Mendoza and now the band was complete. They recorded 11 songs and changed the name from PlanetUS to Soul SirkUS. The name had to have the US in the name as Neal wanted to show this as a continuation of what he started with PlanetUS. The Soul Sirkus parts each start with an S to represent Neal Schon and Jeff Scott Soto. They spent time writing together, Neal on music and Soto on lyrics, but from what I gather, it was recorded in two days!! That is impressive. The album was complete and released on December 7, 2004. The cover was black which is different than the copy I have and I still need to get that copy.

While rehearsing for a tour, Deen Castronovo was exhausted and his health was not great after the long Journey tour that he and Neal just recently finished. Deen stepped away. But no one wanted the project to end so they recruited drummer Virgil Donati most notably from the band Planet X. The band didn’t want to go on the road as a band and support an album that not every member played on so they went back in the studio and had Virgil re-do all the drum parts. This gave them time to do a couple new songs as well. They re-released the album in March 2005 and this time the cover was a bright yellow and there were now 16 songs and not just the original 11 tracks.

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Jeff Scott Soto – ‘Prism’ (2002) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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Rumors were flying that Jeff Scott Soto was going to leave The Boogie Knights and start concentrating on his solo career. Those rumors turned out true. Jeff started working with his Talisman bandmates on a side project called ‘Humanimal’ which was singed to Z-Records. Jeff was negotiating with Z-Records for a solo album and when things looked good and ready to go, Jeff and Z-Records split. Luckily, it wasn’t on bad terms as he continued with Humanimal until they had issues with Z-Records and that band was done.

Meanwhile, back on January 25, 2002, Frontiers Records had a press release that talked about them signing Jeff for his new solo album and if that was enough, they gained the rights to his debut solo album, ‘Love Parade’ and re-issued it as well. The new solo album was to be called ‘The Calm B4 The Storm’ and as Jeff has said, his earlier career was the Calm and what was coming after is The Storm. If Calm is being apart of 30+ albums over almost 20 years, I can’t wait to see what The Storm brings. However, that name was changed to Prism in parts due to where it was recorded, Prism Studios, and Jeff stating that is about a person that reflects many different lights. The album was released in December 4, 2002, I believe as I found the date on Discogs.

The new album was going to be done in the style of say Journey and Survivor which means it is power ballad heavy and not in a bad way. The songs were mostly done over the past few years for various projects that they didn’t quite fit so were never used and some new and all but one written by Soto. Jeff played most of the instruments and sang, but he was worried the label might not like that fact so he credited numerous fake people on the album. First is someone by the name of Michael Scott which is just Jeff’s middle name and his son’s middle name put together. He also credited two names that appeared in Jerky Boy’s episodes, Sam Isanogud and Mikos Scarbacci. There was also Jay Michael another reference to his son as well as Anthony Papa who is real, but didn’t actually play. That doesn’t mean there aren’t other musicians on the album because we do get Gary Schutt, Glenn Hughes and numerous Soto friends.

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