Frontiers (label)
13 October 2017 (released)
04 November 2017
If you put members of Damn Yankees (Jack Blades), Journey (Dean Castronovo) and Whitesnake (Doug Aldrich) into a band together you can be pretty sure that you won’t get a prissy acoustic outfit and from the first frantic riff of the title track this sits squarely in that ‘melodic hard rock’ genre you would expect.
Unlike many ‘supergroups’ though, this actually sounds as though they are playing together because they want to and not because some record exec thinks it’s a good thing.
Good as the first Revolution Saints album was back in 2015 it still had the sense of three guys meeting up and learning whet each other was about but this album definitely feels as though they are working together and it is all the better for it.
Blades and Castronovo’s vocals are as powerful as ever, their harmonies quite sublime, and Doug Aldrich continues to be one of the most expressive guitarists around but for me it is the combination of Castronovo on drums and Blades’ bass playing that really gives the band their freedom to express – this is balls out rock at its very finest.
Most of the songs (all except ‘I Wouldn’t Change A Thing’) were written with Alessandro Del Vecchio who also produced the album and there is a real band ‘sound’ that shows all through.
This style of rock has been done before, notably by some of the bands that these three have made into household names, but somehow this has a freshness and they are clearly suited to each other’s style of playing.
The first Revolution Saints album was great but I think that this one has outstripped it – great rock.
