Tag: Jeff Scott Soto

Eyes – ‘November Mass / Full Moon’ (1994) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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Eyes only recorded two albums with Jeff Scott Soto…well..one studio album and the other was a collection of demos but we will count it. Jeff had departed the band due to creative differences, however, his popularity in Europe was growing. As like the ‘Windows of the Soul’ album, this too was probably released to capitalize on that popularity. This is an interesting release as it is a two disc set with the first being called ‘November Mass’ (basically a greatest hits compilation for the debut and ‘Windows of the Soul’) and the second disc is called ‘Full Moon’ that is a complete album for Eyes with a different singer, Mark Weitz that was recorded in 1992/1993. The 2CD set was released in 1994 on Bulletproof Records and it was only released in Germany & Switzerland yet thanks to the internet, I obtained a copy.

The first disc is ‘November Mass’ and is supposed to be a greatest hits compilation of the first two albums. Well, it isn’t…sorry. It is really only the debut Eyes album on a shuffle with a different track listing. There is not one song off ‘Windows of the Soul’. Yes, three songs appear on that album that are on the debut, but as demo versions of those songs. And those songs are not used here. These are the same tracks as the debut album. A nice thought to think it a compilation, however, that would be false. Does it make this album no good…not in the least. The songs are still great no matter the order.

The second disc is called ‘Full Moon’ and I think there is a misconception with this album. Jeff Scott Soto does not sing on this album except he does appear merely as a background singer. Jeff did record a handful of these demos as the were preparing for a new album. Jeff left the band before the album was finished so Aldy Damian removed Jeff’s lead vocals, while leaving the backing vocals, and brought in a new singer to record the album…in full. The new singer was Mark Weitz and he does an amazing job turning the final Eyes album into a very underrated classic. The band for this album was Aldy Damian on drums, Mark Weitz on vocals, Steve Dougherty on guitar, Jamie Sheriff on keyboards and Bobby Fraga on bass.

‘NOVEMBER MASS’ Songs:

The song opens with Jeff calling out Stevie who lays down so riffs and has Soto screaming when the band kicks in . “Walkin’ Fire” sees Soto change up his deliver a little on the lyrics as he gets a little more gritty. However, the song is a little generic and I would say probably filler. When you compare it to some of the early stuff, not as solid and developed. But still not too bad.

Next is the balls-to-the wall rock anthem, “Callin’ All Girls”. It is a great party song full of bluesy guitar licks, great harmonies, head banging drums and full on sleazy lyrics that wouldn’t do well in the #MeToo movement of today. Jeff’s vocals soar and is right in his wheelhouse of vocal capabilities. When he sings this type of music, he could sing the phone book and I would be on board. The production layers tons of backing vocals (all sound like Jeff) and the sound is immense. You get your typical guitar solo break and the catchy choruses, everything you want in a melodic rock song.

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Takara – ‘Eternity: The Best of 93-98’ (1998) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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After Takara’s third album, The label decided to release a greatest hits compilation of those first three albums. Jeff Scott Soto was no longer a member of the band…okay…he was never an “official” member of the band even though he sang on three albums with them. Now that the band needed to search for a new singer, the label wanted to release this to hold fans over until that process was done. Neal Grusky’s search for a replacement would take a little while as their follow-up album didn’t come out until 2001 with Michael James Flatters as their new singer.

This compilation had 16 tracks and was released on November 18, 1998. If you have the Japanese Edition, you get two additional acoustic tracks as well which is always a plus. However, I think you get those two acoustic tracks on every edition so it isn’t that special…although I don’t think they were ever previously released. You also get the ever cherished OBI Strip along with a booklet with lyrics in both English and Japanese. As far as a breakout between albums you get 5 tracks from the debut, ‘Eternal Faith’, 6 from the follow-up ‘Taste of Heaven’ and 5 from the final Soto album, ‘Blind in Paradise’. The songs are in chronological order and even in the same order they were on the album so not much thought was put in to sequencing for this release. But it is a money grab, so what do you expect.

“Spotlight” kicks it all off and is the first of five tracks from ‘Eternal Faith’. It sounds like you are right back in 1985 with the keyboards and heavy guitar riffs. It is Bon Jovi meets Europe. The album sounds so dated in the 80’s which is not where the music scene was going in 1993!! It has the obligatory guitar solo and Jeff’s vocals have that higher register tone which was key for 80’s rock. The biggest problem is the keyboards are high in the mix and sound like crap. They have this crisp, clink, clink sound to them which I find rather annoying. But not too much that I don’t enjoy the song…more a production note.

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Jeff Scott Soto, Gary Schutt, Michael Voss, Neal Grusky – ’24th of June: Alive ‘N Kissing’ (1995) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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Back on June 24th, of probably 1995 (I think) at a place called Kühners Landhaus in Kissing, Germany, a group of musicians and friends gathered together for a small promotional show. Those four friends were Jeff Scott Soto, Gary Schutt, Michael Voss and Neal Grusky. That short little show was released as Promo and limited to only 500 copies by Long Island Records and released sometime in 1995. I’ve been wanting this one for quite a long time and finally bit the bullet and bought it as it wasn’t too expensive, but is on the pricier side of things.

It is a very relaxed show and the guys have a lot of fun with it but when the music plays, it is all business and all perfection. They are in front of a very polite and yet receptive crowd and they whip through 6 tracks with Jeff on vocals for 5 and Michael Voss on 1 track. They are joined by Mike Foerster to help out on acoustic guitar as this is an all acoustic set. No drums, simply guitars and vocals. An intimate setting and the guys doing what they do best.

The CD opens with Gary Schutt calling for Jeff to come to the stage so they can start the show. When Jeff does finally arrive, they kick in to a beautiful rendition of Jeff’s band Takara’s song “Restless Heart”. The original version is a power ballad with some great keyboards and a big chorus. Here, it is stripped down to its bare essence with Jeff giving such a stellar rendition. There is no explosive moments like in the regular version, it is reserved and even more emotive than the original. Jeff sounds amazing and sounds as good or even better than the studio version. Simply stunning.

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The Collection: Ep. 71 – August 2025 Wrap-Up

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We are now into September, so it is time for the monthly wrap-up so lets see what 2 Loud 2 Old Music added to the collection this month. This is the August 2025 Wrap-Up and we have a little vinyl, a whole lot of CDs, a DVD and even some 8-Tracks. Plus, I finally obtained a Holy Grail item I’ve been searching for a very long time. So much to go through including a couple new Rock Candy CDs in the collection, some Kiss and even a couple Box Sets. Lots of great new and old stuff to go through and show for this month so I hope you enjoy the show!!

So go check it out as it will be live tonight, September 1, 2025 at 7pm. Thanks for stopping by and please click “Like” and hit “Subscribe” as it helps out the site when you do.

And here is everything…

Ellefson-Soto – ‘Unbreakable’ (2025) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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The debut Ellefson-Soto album was released back on October 7, 2022 and only 6 months later, David Ellefson and guitarist Andy Martongelli wasted no time in starting to write the next album. Starting April 2023, work began on the songwriting and over the next year and half the two would collaborate with Jeff Scott Soto on what would become the second Ellefson-Soto album called ‘Unbreakable’. Funny enough, it all started with a cover song. David suggest they cover and a Queen song and David knowing Jeff’s obsessive love of Queen, knew this would draw him back in. That cover was of “Death On Two Legs”. Then it was off to the races and squeezing things in when they could as these guys are always extremely busy. The band recorded the album at Rogue Studios in Wembley, UK by Alessio Garavello and produced by Chris Collier.

The band brings the veterans together with former Megadeth bassist and Grammy winner, David Ellefson and journeyman powerhouse vocalist, Jeff Scott Soto joining forces yet again to deliver something unique for the guys. Throw in the young guns of guitarist Andy Martongelli from Arthemis and drummer Paolo Caridi of Hollow Haze, The Bad Guy Experiment, and Cosmic Dead Ringers and the two dynamics merge to form a modern rock band that throws everything at you from thrash, to power metal, to even a little punk while still bring a heavy modern sound that takes this album to the next level.

The sound of this album is just as heavy as the first with a real modern rock sound. The band feels like they are way more comfortable with each other and they have developed their own sound and style and this whole album feels right. It feels collaborative as you can hear and feel all the elements that each member brings to the table. They also brought in a little help as well as we get not one, but two duets on the album. One with the great Tim “Ripper” Owens (Judas Priest) and another with the amazing Laura Guldemond (Burning Witches). It is not that Jeff can’t handle the vocals all by himself because we know he can, but It is a chance to spread their wings and show what this band is capable of doing while keeping things fresh for the listener.

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Talisman – ‘Besterious’ (1996) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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Sometime during 1996, Jeff Scott Soto and Marcel Jacob were completely thrown for a loop when a best of album was released in Japan for their band Talisman. No one told them. The album was called “Besterious” and consisted of all songs that were previously released from the band. In response to this, Jeff and Marcel, along with Empire Records, decided they were going to release their own band approved version of a greatest hits compilation. It was called “Best of…” and it was chock full of hits plus a ton of previously unreleased tracks that any diehard fan would want to buy. I should know, I bought it!! We have previously talked about “Best Of”, so now lets go through “Besterious”.

As I noted, this was released only in Japan and there is only one version and it is on CD. No other variants of this album exist. It was released on June 12, 1996 and I have the CD. It comes with the prized OBI Strip and has 17 previously released tracks. Sometimes, a simple greatest hits is all you really want and if that is what you are wanting, then this will nicely fit that bill. The songs range from their debut album all the way to their 1995 album, ‘Life’. I don’t believe there has ever been a compilation released that covers their entire career. I think one is definitely needed.

“Break Your Chains” kicks off the album like it did on the debut album. It is one of four songs taken from that album. Jeff’s voice is like velvet as he soars through the verses and that chorus is as catchy as they come. It is a heavy song almost a cross between Dokken and due to the keyboards, Europe. The guitar solo is great with a slight flamenco sound before total shredding begins. It has all the trappings of that era that any 80’s rock fan would love.

“Dangerous” is a pure rocker. The “yeah, yeah” to start is right out of the Joey Tempest playbook. A song about wanting revenge for having his heart broken doesn’t come across too scary as Soto’s voice is silky smooth and angelic it is hard to imagine he is really dangerous, but damn it is such a great song. The guitar solo is dangerous and rips through you as they shred the skin off their fingers as fast as they are going.

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W.E.T. – The Albums Ranked Worst to First

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As we now know as we have review five studio albums, W.E.T. is a culmination of some great artist including 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. Rounding out the current band are Magnus Henriksson (Eclipse); Jamie Borger (Talisman) and Andreas Passmark (Work of Art & Royal Hunt). All in some shape, form or fashion have been a small part of one of the three founding bands.

What started as a possible one-off project with Frontiers Records, the first album came out in 2009 and 16 years later we are now through 5 albums and one live album and a ton of great music. There is not a bad album in the bunch as ALL 5 scored a 4.0 out of 5.0 Stars or better. Not many bands can do that in my book. So, which ones are better than the others, let’s take a look.

THE WORST (NOT REALLY) – ‘APEX’ (2025)

I can’t really say this is a bad album at all because it isn’t.  If I had any complaint it is the same as I usually give for any Eclipse album. And that is that the songs can be repetitive, the stylings are all similar with little variety, however, the songs are so catchy and hook-laden that you don’t mind in the end.  As I said earlier, this is the sweet spot for Jeff’s vocals and my favorite style for him to sing.  Erik Martensson’s fine song writing is on full display. How he can write so many great songs is beyond me with this and Eclipse.  The guitar playing, the keyboards, the bass and the drums are in perfect harmony on these releases and they don’t know how to make a bad album.  My Overall Score is a 4.0 out of 5.0 Stars.  This is a brand new album so it could be a grower, but it is here because it doesn’t really offer anything new from the first four.

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Jeff Scott Soto – All The Albums Ranked Worst to First (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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It took me 20 months to get through Jeff Scott Soto’s catalog and have been through 89 reviews of items in my collection. That is an insane amount of albums, singles and collector’s pieces to have in a collection, let alone one artist. Jeff started way back in 1984 with Yngwie Malmsteen and has been on over 50 studio albums, numerous live albums, compilations and tribute albums, soundtracks and anything else you can think of and it was a personal goal of mine to visit every single one. I don’t think you will find any website with a more extensive collection of Jeff Scott Soto Reviews then right here at 2 Loud 2 Old Music.

Not every album he has done is good..not at all, but most of them for me are at least a 3 out of 5 or better. And the ones that aren’t, have at least a few songs to add to an already impressive playlist. Along this journey, I have had the pleasure of meeting Jeff twice after his shows and he has been so kind each time and signed numerous album covers for me. However, I was never able to get the interview I had hoped for, but I am not giving up hope as one day it will happen. Until then, let’s go through every studio album where Jeff is the main singer and rank them from the worst album to the best album and everything in between.

There are 53 studio albums that I have where Jeff is the featured singer and we touch them all. I hope you enjoy the walk though the albums and maybe find something you would like to hear. If you discovered at least one album as a result of this series, then my work is done. If not, “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU???”…kidding. Sorry, lost my head there. Enough of this chitchat, let’s get to the list.

Updated May 2025

First, the ones that scored 2 or less out of 5 Stars

THE WORST: Bakteria- ‘Defecate! Suffocate! Mutilate! Masturbate!’ (1992/2009)

Musically, it is pretty freaking heavy. Uptempo, speed metal vibes at time and as the sticker says, a mixture of Metal/Sludge/Crust/Punk. All I know is it sucks. Jeff sings in almost a growl, that is deep and completely unrecognizable as it is borderline guttural vocals at times. I listened to this in the car on the drive home from work one day and I thought to myself, “If I have a wreck and die, the police and my family are going to wonder what the hell I was in to with that crap playing in my car.” I was actually a little embarrassed to be listening to it. I am a little embarrassed to actually own this and have it in the collection, but my Soto Collection isn’t complete without it sadly. My Overall Score is a 0.0 out of 5.0 Stars! And that is being nice. It is the WORST ALBUM I HAVE EVER HEARD IN MY LIFE!!!

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W.E.T. – ‘Apex’ (2025) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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As we now know as we are on their now fifth studio album, W.E.T. is a culmination of some great artist including 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. Rounding out the band are Magnus Henriksson (Eclipse); Jamie Borger (Talisman) and Andreas Passmark (Work of Art & Royal Hunt). All in some shape, form or fashion have been a small part of one of the three founding bands.

The album was released on March 28, 2025 a good 5 years after their last release and way too long between albums. I am sure getting these guys schedules to all coincide at the same time is not an easy task, but they managed it thankfully. A band I thought was going to be a one-off project now has 5 albums and a live album spanning over 16 years since the release of the debut back in 2009. If you love solid, melodic hard rock, this will not disappoint. And as usual, Erik Martensson is handling the productions so you know the sound is going to be amazing and it is.

The album opens strong with “Believer” and it is worth every minute we’ve waited since the last release. Jeff sounds amazing and I have to admit this is his wheelhouse and my favorite style of singing for me. The guitar solo on here is blistering fast and just rips right through the song. The drums are pounding and all is immense and powerful. The sound is more Eclipse than Talisman or Work of Art, but I’m good with that. Erik does most of the writing so that Eclipse influence is going to flow through.

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The Collection: Ep. 55 – April 2025 Wrap-Up

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As we end another month, it is time to go back and see what 2 Loud 2 Old Music added to the collection. This is April 2025 and we have lots of vinyl, CDs and even some 8-Tracks. So much to go through including a new Rock Candy collection, new items for the Kiss collection and a couple Box Set collections. Lots of great new albums and old ones to go through and show for this month so I hope you enjoy the show!!

So go check it out as it will be live tonight right now, May 5, 2025 at 7pm. Thanks for stopping by and please click “Like” and hit “Subscribe” as it helps out the site when you do.

And here it all is if you can’t watch…but please watch!!