From audiophilereview.com on Artifact: The Unreleased Album:

Pop legend Eric Carmen’s quote at the end of the press release for the previously unreleased new album by The Choir pretty much sums up the importance of this album in his personal muscal history.

I went to see The Choir when I was 16, and immediately wanted to join their band. They were a great group that had many lives and many members. This album was made by one of the last and final versions of the band. This recently discovered recording is sure to rekindle fond memories for the many fans of The Choir, including myself. Give it a spin, and enjoy a special piece of Cleveland rock history.”

Much of the core band from The Choir, of course, eventually connected with charismatic singer-songwriter Eric Carmen and hit it big as The Raspberries. They were a group which helped to fill the early 1970’s void for melodic powerful rock ‘n roll in the near-vacuum left after The Beatles split up. The Raspberries, Emitt Rhodes, Badfinger and Big Star brought that sound into the new decade while the individual Beatle members themselves tried to forge new sounds all their own (Wings, Plastic Ono Band, etc.)

Just out from Omnivore Recordings, this new album from The Choir — a band which opened for The Who and The Yardbirds, and has ties which lead to none other than Joe Walsh and The James Gang — is a wonderful snapshot of great group which never fully got its due. Called Artifact: The Unreleased Album, this CD is a must hear for fans of The Raspberries as well as British invasion-inspired power pop, from The Who and The Kinks to Big Star, The Posies and Guided By Voices.

So how is this new Choir album? Most of it is really good proto power pop — much of it great actually! It is so good that it does make one wonder why it was never released back in the day…

The lead track “Anyway I Can” sounds like a should-a-been hit single, with a great hook in the classic late ’60s pop rock mode. It’s a gem of a tune which would have fit in neatly on A.M. radio of the late 1960s alongside tracks by The Buckinghams, The Who, The Archies, The Move, The Lemon Pipers, Strawberry Alarm Clock and The Beatles themselves.

“Ladybug” sounds like what might happen if Marc Bolan (T-Rex) was in The Dukes of Stratosphear (XTC’s psychedelic alter ego band) paying tribute to The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour recordings. “I Can’t Stay In Your Life Anymore” feels like a lost Nazz track, with a melody Todd Rundgren might have fancied.  They also kick out a killer cover of The Kinks’ “David Watts” – this many years before The Jam (who covered it) even existed.

“Have I No Other Love To Offer” feels like what might have happened if Robin Gibb fronted Broken Barricades-era Procol Harum (with some neat Robin Trower-inspired guitar soloing). It’s a cool concept, actually…

Sound on the Artifact: The Unreleased Album is excellent for a release of this type: these are genuinely high fidelity, proper studio recordings and generally well recorded and composed.  So, don’t worry about hearing lo fi demos and such on this release.  This is a gem saved from the archives, for sure.Only one song from the album is up on Tidal (the aforementioned “Anyway I Can”) but there you can also find the essential early single by The Choir — called “Its Cold Outside,” the hit which brought the band to national attention in the first place.

This is good stuff and if you like American power pop and want to connect some dots tracing not only Eric Carmen’s roots but also the remarkably rich musical legacy emanating out of Ohio. The Choir’s  Artifact: The Unreleased Album is essential. It makes great bands like Guided By Voices (GBV) seem less of an anomaly in Ohio rock ‘n roll history. There was no doubt a hearty precedent of pop greatness before GBV and The Choir — and The Raspberries — are proof.

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From spillmagazine.com on Greatest Hits: 40 Trips Around The Sun:

Toto was the Steely Dan of pop music. Top-notch session musicians who went the route of pop music when they formed a band. Very L.A. and very commercial and always very good. To celebrate their 40th anniversary, the classic and current lineup of the band has recorded three new songs to be included on their new Greatest Hits compilation, Greatest Hits: 40 Trips Around the Sun. This means: Steve Lukather (guitars and vocals and original member), David Paich (keyboards and vocals), Steve Porcaro (keyboards) and Joseph Williams (lead vocals).

The truth is, Toto has never broken up and continues to tour and record new albums. Their last album, Toto XIV, was released in 2015. But what this new compilation does do is bring together many of their career highlights while alerting older fans that this is still a viable band. It may be difficult getting fans to listen to a new album, but if you include three new songs with a ‘best of,’ you reach many more people.

This collection is not sequenced in chronological order, which I prefer as it gives one the chance to hear a band evolve over time (The Beatles 1 is a good example: “Love Me Do” to “The Long and Winding Road,” and you can hear the band grow over those eight years). You do get the hits from their debut album (1978’s Toto), such as “Hold The Line” (my favourite), “I’ll Supply The Love”, and “Georgy Porgy,” to their latest studio release. Their first album features Bobby Kimball on lead vocals. Their debut album proved to be a huge commercial and critical success, but from 1978 until 1982 the band saw declining record sales and declining interest.

It was somewhat of a shock when in 1982 Toto IV was released and became a Grammy-winning, smash success, both commercially and critically. “Africa,” “Rosanna” (both on this collection), and “Make Believe” (not included) played on radio and they were THE band of 1983-1983. Just try to get “Africa” out of your head now. Brilliant song. But after that album, Bobby Kimball left the band, and by 1986’s Fahrenheit, Joseph Williams took over vocal duty. Toto never achieved the same degree of success as Toto IV, but that does not mean later albums should be dismissed. Quite the contrary. “I’ll Be Over You” from Fahrenheit is included on this new collection and is an example of the high quality of music Toto made and continues to make.

They have a knack of blending jazz and pop with, at times, world music. This adds up to some intricate melodies, tight playing and overall great songs. Perhaps lyrics are not their strong point (mostly love songs, but we all know there is nothing wrong with silly love songs). Steve Lukather has provided many tasteful licks to many of Toto’s great songs over time, and continues with the three new songs.

The three new songs are quite a welcome addition to this album. “Spanish Sea” has a slight “Africa” vibe going on for it, and that is more than welcomed by me. It is a great song and should be a hit. The other new songs, “Alone” and “Struck By Lightning,” show a band still in their prime. A little experimentation with the pop format, some great playing, and strong vocals.

Toto has been around for 40 years and while their lineup has been somewhat fluid, their sound has not been. When you hear a Toto song, you know that it is Toto. No question. But this is not a criticism, nor does it mean everything they do sounds the same. Not at all. It means that this band managed to find a sound without developing it into a formula.

This is a wonderful collection of new and old, probably like one of their concerts.

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From musicomh.com on Walk Between Worlds:

From nodepression.com on Arkansas:

John Oates’ new album Arkansas displays raw power, pure beauty, as well as musical grooves that get under the skin and head straight for the heart. There’s an emotional honesty to Oates’ vocals that imbues these tunes, and performances, with a heart-wrenching clarity. On Arkansas more than any of his albums — even those with Daryl Hall — Oates is the music, and the music is him. Of Arkansas, Oates says, “I feel like I’ve finally found my voice. With this album, I’ve unlocked the key to the influences that have made me who I am even before I got into rock and roll. If left to my own devices, this is the music I’d be playing.” While the album started out as a tribute to Mississippi John Hurt, it developed to include songs that reflect the musical styles of the late 1920s and early 1930s.

And it’s Oates’ voice that propels the album; his gritty, soulful vocals provide the stoutness for every song, and even when he just can’t quite stretch to some of the high notes on the jazzier tunes, Oates movingly maneuvers his phrasing to deliver the poignant moments the song requires. On Arkansas a stellar band, the Good Road Band, joins him — Sam Bush on mandolin, Guthrie Trapp on guitars, Steve Mackey on bass, Nat Smith on cello, Josh Day on percussion — and they produce the tight grooves and smooth sounds on which Oates’ voice and his own guitar licks float.

Oates’ take on Bill Halley’s “Miss the Mississippi” — made famous by Jimmie Rodgers and more recently by Crystal Gayle — may be the most beautiful version of this song. This version opens sparsely, with just Oates singing over a few elegantly picked chords, and then it develops into a slow ragtime waltz that captures the ache of a man who misses his lover and the beauty of his home. The old folk blues tune “Stack O Lee” opens with Oates’ gravelly voice pleading for justice as he tells the infamous tale of Stack O’ Lee’s shooting a man to death. The song starts slowly but choogles along propulsively with a jump blues feel.

The moving title track flows gently and stately, much like the old man river, the Mississippi, that the singer watches flowing from his vantage point in the “snow-white cotton fields of Arkansas.” Oates recorded “Pallet Soft and Low” on his 2011 album Mississippi Mile, but this version echoes much of the best music recorded at Muscle Shoals, with its crunchy guitars, especially the lead riffs on the fadeout (which recall the Stones of Sticky Fingers). “Lord Send Me” is a hand-clapping gospel tune that brightens the corner where Oates and the band stand and illustrates that the blues and spirituals are close cousins.

“Mississippi John Hurt would start his show with a gospel song,” says Oates, “and I’ve started doing that, too. It puts the crowd in a certain frame of mind.” “Dig Back Deep” sums up this entire project: “Gonna dig back deep/back to where you started/back to where your heart is.” Oates not only mentions his influences in the song but also plays guitar in their style in the song as he includes phrases from Mississippi John Hurt’s “Slidin’ Delta.”

“My guitar playing,” he says, is a blend of “Mississippi John Hurt, Chuck Berry, Curtis Mayfield, Percy Mayfield, and Doc Watson.”

Arkansas may be Oates’ very best album simply because the music is so much a part of him that he can deliver it with a simple intensity that evokes a range of feelings in the listeners.

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From teamrock.com on Seventeen:

One of Holland’s biggest bands in the 70s, Hilversum-formed Kayak have closed shop then re-opened more than once, exercising a belief that the music matters beyond the personnel. Ton Scherpenzeel is now the carrier of the torch, the writer, keyboardist and all-rounder reviving the name and assembling a fresh line-up after a three-year break brought on by sudden departures. Bart Schwertmann is his new vocalist, Marcel Singor the guitarist. A rhythm section well known to fans of the Neal Morse Band joined as this album was already nearly finished. Guesting on the instrumental Ripples On The Water is Andy Latimer, Scherpenzeel having written the track with him in mind after working with him in Camel.

If this all suggests the type of camel that is a horse designed by committee (wonky, pasted together), rest assured that Kayak still sound like Kayak. Scherpenzeel’s firmly at the helm, and when he’s not playing everything, the others are (mostly) performing parts he’s penned. And what Kayak do best is blend melodic, adult pop songs with longer, symphonic prog pieces. Their mastery of the former is exemplified by three-minute opener Somebody, which echoes Cold As Ice by Foreigner with a lick of Supertramp at their most staccato. Schwertmann’s confident vocal declares he’s not going to be a perfunctory hired hand and has every intention to sing the living daylights out of this material.

The more concise numbers do a sterling job of keeping matters lively, but it’s the extended, definitively progressive rock tracks which see Kayak push upstream with a swagger in their stride. La Peregrina revels in bombast and makes frequent leaps from heavy riffing to syrupy opulence. Walk Through Fire opens like it’s scoring the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 before easing into piano-led balladry, eventually revving up for a climax which isn’t a million miles away from Steve Hackett’s latest work. The third biggie, Cracks, enjoys a lolloping guitar motif and stays in a high gear verging on the histrionic. To An End makes for a rather saccharine, maudlin closing piano ditty, but that’s been counterbalanced by Latimer’s earlier cameo, a textbook piece of restraint which encourages the more showy tracks to take flight.

You may be able to deduce from its title how many albums Kayak have made in their 45-year history (well, it counts as 45 if you overlook their complete split from 1982 to 1999), and given their apparent Lazarus-like ability to shrug off key members and regenerate, they might even make another 17. The abiding bravado and enthusiasm is infectious.

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From overdrive-mag.com on The Snake King:

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last 30 years, you’ll be familiar with the song Jessie’s Girl. It’s probably been sung at every wedding, birthday party or karaoke event you’ve ever been to. What you might not know is that the man behind that song, Rick Springfield, is still going strong in the music industry today. ‘The Snake King’, set for release on January 26th through Frontier’s Music, is the twentieth studio release from Springfield and brings a whole new meaning to the term “rock’n’roll”.

The album opens with Land Of The Blind, which has a real blues-rock vibe both musically and lyrically. The track is a great indication of how emotional the remainder of the album is going to be and definitely sets up for an energetic release. The Devil You Know is track two and continues with the blues vibes, but you can also hear that there are country influences. This track also throws a reference in about being unfriended on Facebook, which shocked this interviewer a little, but it was a nice little dig and attention seeker for the millennials.

Track three is Little Demon, and like The Devil You Know, definitely has country-like undertones, but also has a classic and blues rock feel. A perfect mash-up of acoustic and electric guitar with a big drum and bass backbone that will have you rocking along, whether that be with your air guitar, or some light headbanging. The outro to this track has that blues feel that the other tracks only touch on and makes for easy, yet enjoyable listening.

Judas Tree is up next and further builds on the bluesy vibe of the album, especially musically. There’s also an impressive guitar solo halfway through the track that gives Springfield the opportunity to show off his impressive skills on the instrument. Track five is Jesus Was An Atheist, which has a slow start but soon enough the instruments kick in and we’re rocking. The lyrics are everything you’d expect from the title with Springfield taking artistic liberties on his interpretation of religion.

Title track The Snake King is up next and those country influences and sounds are back after blues was allowed to take over for Judas Tree and Jesus Was An Atheist. The repetitive lyrical style of this track allows the listener to get completely lost in the musicality of the track, which is exactly what this reviewer did, and it required a second listen to report on its greatness. God Don’t Care is next and the religious and country undertones are back in force with this one. Springfield shows off his impressive vocal range on this track with his lovely, gravelly tones gaining a starring role.

The Voodoo House is track eight and it opens on choral singing before that blues beat kicks in, and the guitars and bass take over. The country vibes are also back in force on this track and is a lyrical masterpiece. Next is Suicide Manifesto, which despite what the title may imply is actually quite an upbeat song. The guitars get their chance to shine here and the fast-paced and upbeat drums are really impressive.

Blues For The Disillusioned is track ten, and while The Voodoo House and Suicide Manifesto are up beat and rocky, this song is slow and very bluesy. Acoustic guitar takes the spotlight on this one, and with previous album tracks, it takes on religious undertones. Second to last is Satan Is An Anagram which picks the beat straight back up again and is a quintessential rock’n’roll song. It has a sound similar to that of Johnny B. Goode by Chuck Berry and would be a great song to swing dance to.

The final, and longest track of the album at just over ten minutes, is Orpheus In The Underworld. The track contains an interesting, yet impressive 30-second harmonica solo and is an amalgamation of the three most prominent genres on the album – blues, rock’n’roll, and country. The whole album is a bit of a mash-up of different sounds, vibes, and genres so it seems perfectly fitting the final track does the exact same.

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From spillmagazine.com on Sweetzerland Manifesto:

A true legend of the 1970s best known for his work as the lead guitarist from arguably the best hard-rock band of the era, Aerosmith, Joe Perry has released his eighth solo record, Sweetzerland Manifesto. For his first full-length solo release since 2009’s Have Guitar, Will Travel, and his first recording venture since The Hollywood Vampires’ self-titled 2015 debut, Perry is joined by an all-star rotating cast of acclaimed vocalists, including Cheap Trick’s Robin Zander and The New York Dolls’s David Johansen, to deliver a record that stands among the best of his solo material.

Sweetzerland Manifesto opens with the African-inspired chants and rhythms of “Rumble in the Jungle.” The solo tribal-influenced vocals and percussion prove to be a striking contrast to the ripping tones of Perry’s electric guitar which at times play underneath everything, while at other times takes the forefront in an intense and tasteful manner. Ultimately, the highly-experimental track successfully bridges the blues of today with its very deep roots in Africa, and proves to be a very exciting opening to the record. While the chants of “Rumble in the Jungle” are used in more of an atmospheric and instrumental manner, the following song, “I’ll Do Happiness,” stars vocalist Terry Reid and is an absolutely dirty blues track that is driven by a sludgy shuffle, fuzzy bass, and Perry’s slinky and sparse guitar licks that pair with the natural and warm rasp of Reid’s vocals. The other two tracks that feature Reid, “Sick & Tired” and the closing track “Won’t Let Me Go,” are just as great to listen to, with the former taking a more straight-ahead rock approach and the latter sounding like it crawled straight from the dark, swampy depths of the delta.

That being said, there really isn’t a weak track on the record. Perry’s sole collaboration on “Aye, Aye, Aye” with Zander takes a straight-ahead ’70s rock ’n’ roll approach that is reminiscent of The Who and early material from Aerosmith. Meanwhile, his work with Johansen feels softer yet grittier in tone. Whether it is the acoustic-driven melodies of “I Wanna Roll” or the classic take on traditional blues form of “Haberdasher Blues,” these songs feel fresh while steeped in more than half a century of the blues.

What stands out most on the record, however, are “Spanish Sushi” and “Eve of Destruction.” “Spanish Sushi” is a fiery instrumental composition with a slick riff, subtle and haunting synths, and solos that were crafted to tell a melodic narrative in a fashion only a master of one’s craft could do. We all know Perry can shred; so much so that his contributions to the guitar in the mid-’70s paralleled that of Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, but the demonstrated restraint in favour of dynamics, melody, and style is incredibly tasteful, making it stand among some of the most stirring instrumental numbers in rock history. Perry’s cover of P. F. Sloan’s politically-charged 1964 anthem “Eve of Destruction” stands out for not only the fact that it is the only track to feature Perry’s vocals — sounding gravelly and dark in a manner similar to that of Keith Richards’ — but for the song’s continued social relevance, over fifty years later. Originally written in protest of the Vietnam War, Perry’s choice of the cover feels very intentional; like a daunting reminder that we are seemingly slipping back at an accelerated pace rather than moving forward.

Sweetzerland Manifesto, in short, is a brilliant album from one of rock ’n’ roll’s greatest musical voices. It is a record that captures inspiration from a number of different eras of blues and rock in a manner that is unmistakably characteristic of Perry’s song-writing and guitar-playing. While his collaborations with Zander, Reid, and Johansen are along the same quality in which other guitar heroes have taken on records featuring a variety of singers — ranging from Slash to Santana — the inclusion of two instrumental tracks, “Rumble in the Jungle” and “Spanish Sushi,” and the Perry-led “Eve of Destruction” leave me longing for more jams and tracks featuring Perry’s dark, bellowing voice. It ultimately leaves one excited for what the future holds for the guitarist and the rumored Aerosmith album that is potentially on the way. Regardless, Sweetzerland Manifesto is a refreshing album that reaffirms Perry’s legendary status as a shaper of rock whose song-writing and performance are still furthering the continuum of the genre. Perry proves to be just as innovating and exciting to listen to as he is on Toys In The Attic (1975), Rocks (1976), Get A Grip (1993), and Honkin’ On Bobo (2004), ultimately giving Sweetzerland Manifesto the quality of a modern classic.

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