Label: Frontiers Music Srl.
Release date: 12.07.2018
Production: Alessandro Del Vecchio
Album length: 42.40 min.
Genre: Hard Rock
An album that dropped in the middle of last July, but one that’s well worth spotlighting. Funny enough, for a rocker whose interest in rock’n’roll goes at least a little deeper than the brain processor of your average well-read Earthling, i.e. knowing AC/DC and Guns N’ Roses, the name Johnny Gioeli is inseparable from his daily musical life. Johnny is a recognized vocal fixture who has, one way or another, put his name on the world map of the most prominent hard rock acts, whether through his work in his home band Hardline, while for years the guy has also served loyally in the crew of the “German Blackmore,” the indestructible Axel Rudi Pell. Then there are his gigs in Crush 40 and the recent collaboration with Deen Castronovo (Neal Schon Band, The Dead Daisies, Revolution Saints, ex-Jounrey) on a joint project.
In short, Johnny Gioeli is a bit of a legend. And now, finally, here’s his solo album too, the one he’d dreamed about for years. But it’d be a mistake to think this release had no deeper purpose. »One Voice« veers off a bit from what we’re used to from Gioeli’s other musical ventures. And there’s one more thing watching over the story of this album. A big chunk of the money raised from sales will go to a young man named Joe Barber, to help his recovery from a serious accident he suffered the year before last, which left him paralyzed.
»One Voice« delivers tracks that Johnny would honestly have had a hard time fitting onto any of the albums by the artists described in the paragraph above. Even the opening track surprises. It’s the ballad Drive. Not everyone picks a ballad to open an album. But Drive turned out truly phenomenal and deserves that spot. It grabs the listener’s attention and sparks total curiosity about what the rest of his musical substance has to offer.
Many of the arrangements on this album are dressed in an acoustic sound, which starts to dominate especially in the third track One Voice. The title track, that is. Gioeli sings phenomenally. Not a shred of his expressive vocal power has been lost over the years. In these gently stripped-down production touches, where everything rings out even more organic and natural than you’d expect, his vocal qualities come across even more intensely. With the payoff of all that passion and emotion, he touches the listener even more deeply, or let’s say in a special way, a different way. The album is loaded with positive energy and bubbling vibes of positive messages. As befits a hard rock haul, the songs hit their mood crescendo in the chorus melodies. Mind Melt keeps that positive glow going afterward. The production is “stripped.” The acoustic touch is clearly and firmly noticeable, the guitars are bare, a touch groovy and greasy, and in the background even an old-school Hammond organ sound creeps in now and then. Vocals in the center. The absolute center. In terms of ideas, someone like Bryan Adams would kill to be seized, in his mature years, by even a smidgen of the creativity that radiates from the inspiration behind the tracks on »One Voice«. Hit Me Once, Hit Ya Twice is a song Gotthard would gladly “adopt” for one of their last two albums. In this kind of production setting and arrangement, the songs carry plenty of hooks that, in a different studio story, could have coaxed out considerably more AOR goodness. Deeper is an outstanding pop rock ballad that belongs right on rotation on the major radio stations, backed even with fretless bass lines, and its “twin” Price We Pay afterward, a ballad of the kind Bon Jovi forgot how to write long ago. Before the end, the rousing, anthemic hard rock send-off Out Of Here pours oil on the fire, while the album closes with another great ballad, Oh Fathers, where a banjo arrangement in the chorus would also fit nicely, since it even has country touches, confirming the man’s compositional maturity.
For fans of Hardline, Axel Rudi Pell and Crush 40, adding the album »One Voice« to your CD collection is a definite must. A new Hardline album will be out soon, then a new Axel Rudi Pell album, and so on… So Johnny stays with us as a big hard rock fixture in the future too. And that’s a good thing.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
rating: 8.5 / 10
Track list:
1. Drive
2. It
3. One Voice
4. Mind Melt
5. Running
6. Deeper
7. Let Me Know
8. Hit Me Once, Hit Ya Twice
9. Price We Pay
10. Out Of Here
11. Oh Fathers
Lineup:
Johnny Gioeli – vocals
Eric Gadrix – guitar
Alessandro Del Vecchio – keyboards
Nik Mazzucconi – bass guitar
Marco Di Salvia – drums
