2015 CD Reviews - Revolution Saints - S/T

Revolution Saints

S/T

Frontier Records -2015

http://www.revolutionsaints.com

When the press release came out to announce the formation of a new "super-group" featuring Night Ranger's Jack Blades, former Whitesnake guitarist Doug Aldrich and Journey drummer Deen Castronovo, I couldn't help but feel pretty excited at the prospect of what their collaboration might turn out to be. Each musician has a solid pedigree with the acts with which they are most associated. While still playing drums, it is actually Castronovo performing the majority of the vocals on the album. Jack Blades has a vocal turn on "You're Not Alone" (sharing leads with Journey's Arnel Pineda) and "Way To The Sun" (with Alessandro Del Vecchio).

And musically speaking, this album turned out quite well. But the album also inspired what can only be termed a two part review for me.

The album opens up strong with two fast paced numbers. "Back on My Trail" (see the video below) is a full-on rocker to get your synapses firing right from the get-go. And while I initially didn't care much for "Turn Back Time" when I first saw the video online before the album's release, the song did grow on me over repeated listens. The production may overshadow the chorus a bit but the song ends up being quite enjoyable.

Some of the online commentary has mentioned how the band tends to sound a bit like Journey. I think that opinion is a somewhat overstated, but I definitely heard that band's influence on the tracks "Don't Walk Away" and "Dream On". While the latter cut is a high quality rocker, the former is a power ballad that ends up being pretty much a formless mess.

The main portion of the album features 12 tracks, with four of the songs as ballads, which seems a bit much in my book. The fact that three of those songs (the aforementioned "Don't Walk Away", "You're Not Alone" and "Way Back To The Sun") are of pedestrian quality at best doesn't help matters any. "You're Not Alone" features Journey's Arnel Pineda on co-lead vocals. The only ballad I found enjoyable was the closing track "In The Name of the Father (Fernando's Song)". The song also features a nice guitar solo.

Speaking of the guitar work, it had some real nice moments in the spotlight as one might imagine. I loved the solo on "Here Forever" and "Better World." While I didn't care for "Way Back To The Sun," the track did feature Journey's Neal Schon on guitar.

The band really shined on the rockers "To Mend a Broken Heart" and my personal favorite track "Locked Out of Paradise."

The album is a rock solid example of stand out melodic rock. The performances are top notch and you can definitely see the potential the band could have as a continuous entity. You've got a solid rhythmic foundation upon which to build the soaring vocals and choruses and Doug Aldrich's playing is pretty much amazing.

That said, you might wonder why I'm kind of disappointed in the album and the "band" as a whole.

The smallest portion of disappointment goes to the fact that the band included three hidden bonus tracks on the deluxe edition of the disc. There's no mention of the songs anywhere in the liner notes. I had to look the information up online. Actually, they aren't so much bonus tracks as they are alternate versions of songs already on the album. There's two extra versions of "You're Not Alone". The first alternate features Arnel Pineda as the solo vocalist while the second alternate has Castronovo on vocals. Meanwhile, the third "bonus" track is another version of "Way To The Sun" that features Doug Aldrich playing the guitar instead of the Neal Schon guest appearance. All of this is meaningless drivel to me, there's no need for three extra tracks that don't actually add anything to the overall package.

But that is such a minor thing compared to the fact that this project essentially makes all three players in the band little more than a cover band. With the exception of a Jack Blades lyric credit for the song "Turn Back Time", none of them had anything to do with the creation of the music on the album. This has been a running theme with a lot of releases from Frontier Records in the past but the trend has been getting stronger in recent years. It is almost like they are turning melodic rock into rock and roll's answer to how things generally work with country music. That is to say, the material performers sing and play being composed by others.

In this case, the majority of the album was written by Alessandro Del Vecchio. To be perfectly honest, calling this a Revolution Saints album must violate some truth in advertising laws somewhere. It should've been a solo release for Del Vecchio instead. He produced the album, played keyboards, did vocal work and either wrote or co-wrote 11 of the 12 songs on the disc.

It isn't like the majority of the songs aren't of excellent quality. Perhaps it is a bias of mine, but when it comes to rock music, I want the people performing it to have "ownership" of the material. I think if they don't create or at the very least co-create (and one tiny lyrical credit does not fit the bill) the material they perform, they might just as well be an official cover band instead of a widely publicized rock group.

In the end, my review is a bit of a split personality. If all you care about is the music, I think you will definitely enjoy this album. Regardless of who wrote the songs, they are mostly fantastic. Yes I hated the ballads, but I'm a bit of an unsympathetic son of a gun, so perhaps other listeners will rejoice in the band's slower material. And the band can really rock out when the occasion is called for.

But for those who also pay attention to the behind the scenes crafting of an album, there will be that school of thought that you aren't quite getting an honest representation of the three main credited members of this band.

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by RJhog (Admin) on July 29, 2015 at 2:46pm

Didn't realize I never commented on this review. I agree with your point regarding truth in advertising. This was a highly anticipated release for me, but the fact that Blades and gang didn't participate in the writing of the album soured my opinion. And for me, the songs aren't as strong as they seem to be for you.

Add to that the recent headlines regarding a certain drummer and lead vocalist, and this his shaping up as this years biggest disappointment for me.

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Permalink Reply by TageRyche on July 29, 2015 at 3:43pm

Castronovo is definitely the disappointment of the year.

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Permalink Reply by Scott on July 29, 2015 at 3:17pm

I too was excited for this one but my excitement quickly faded for two reasons... First, it's a Frontiers album and the fact that, as you stated, "the majority of the album was written by Alessandro Del Vecchio" made it no longer an album collaborated on by these three great musicians. In fact that one statement sums up the way I feel about all new Frontiers releases, they do not represent the artist on the cover but the ego behind it all, that and they all sound the same (with a few exception). My second objection was that the songs never improved with each listen, in fact they began to wear on me.

SO I waited for someone (who I thought would most likely be RJ) to post in NMC, but when that never happened I totally forgot about this album/band and thats where we are today and likely going forward...

Nice Read!!!

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Permalink Reply by TageRyche on July 29, 2015 at 3:45pm

Thanks Scott.

A lot of Frontiers releases are in fact written or heavily co-written by outside collaborators. I think it depends on how big a name the "talent" had previously. Bigger name, more likely to have more say in the writing.

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Permalink Reply by Scott on July 29, 2015 at 3:55pm

Totally Agree! Toto for example... But it also makes this release a little more puzzling, I would think Blades by himself would have been good enough to give them free reign... oh well Castronovo blew any chance of trying again and so I think this is a one-and-done affair, and will likely be forgotten totally because of him....