World Play (European edition)
Soul SirkUS

This lot are yet another hard rock supergroup, which we seem to be getting alot of lately. And unlike many of em', like the iffy and fluid Brides of Destruction, this lot have produced one hell of an album. They fill out the triumverate of Velvet Revolver and Audioslave, doing the AOR/hard rock thing with oddles of class and aplomb. Course looking at the members this is not a shock. We have Neal Schon (Santana, Journey, HSAS, Hardline, Bad English), Marco Mendoza (Ted Nugent and Whitesnake), Virgil Donati (er who?) and finally Jeff Scott Soto (Malmsteen, Humananimal, Talisman and numerous solo stints including the vocals in the movie Rock Star) so no slackers there. What they have produced is an interesting mixture of all their previous bands. Much of the time, this CD reminded me of a mixture of Hardline and HSAS, except on the track 'Coming Home' where JSS calls on his inner Steve Perry and helps produce a great lost Journey track. JSS vocals are closer to those of Sammy Hager (who with Michael Anthony was in the previous version of the band called Planet US and who wrote the track 'Peephole') than they are say John Waite's or Johnny Goelli. I think JSS has finally found a band that measures up to his talents. This band is indescribably good and one does hope they will manage to produce some more material. It may be a wee bit early to declare this my AOR album of the year, but I can't see anything topping this. With the DVD and the bonus tracks; the Frontiers version of this album is even better than the stateside one.

Rating: 5/5

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