Starting with a bang, HyperMania leads the charge screaming and stomping all the way. Ditto the title track. BeLie, while slightly less heavy, still could be heavy AOR easy, which is kind of what is happening here. Though there are times, particularly those mentioned above, where the boys lean more towards the heavy. There are a couple of tracks that lean towards the ballad-esque; those are Torn and Give In to Me. Again, both have their heavy side. As a man once told me, you can have no light without the dark.
So when one listens to SOTO’s latest, what should they expect? Plenty of heavy rock, for one – those who are hungry for hair metal should go straight to Detonate and Dance With the Devil, the latter of which is supercharged with heavy hairiness! After Glow, Vanity Lane and World Gone Colder also have their charms. You should also expect moments of cheesy heavy metal balladry, though not many, thankfully! For the most part, these tracks as a whole will make you want to stand up proudly and stomp your feet whilst banging your head and drinking your drinks! If that sounds like something that you are into, then this is definitely your bag. If you are in it for the proggier side of things, then you may be somewhat disappointed. Choose wisely though, brothers and sisters. SOTO will rock your face off if you let them!
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“In celebration of Steve Perry’s return to the music world with his new album “Traces”, my longtime friends at Frontiers came to me with the idea of throwing out a cover of one of SP’s tunes as a ‘welcome back’ of sorts.
This idea came about a week before I was scheduled to embark on the current Sons Of Apollo tour, I had little time to put this together, so I called on my VERY busy friend Alessandro Del Vecchio and asked if he could help me put something together. He enthusiastically squeezed me in and quickly knocked out the music to a song he had suggested called ‘What Was’. This song was only available on the ‘Greatest Hits + Five Unreleased’ album.
And so here it is, a thank you, welcome back and celebration for Mr. Perry’s return…I owe so much to this man and the influence he gave me as a singer, I only hope I did this song justice for you all to enjoy!” – Jeff Scott Soto, September 2018
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