Artist: Newman
Label: Chrome Dome Music
Release: 2007
Steve Newman is a British melodic AOR/hard rock artist. Busy as a little ant. Ever since “Sign Of Modern Times” (2003) and “Heaven Knows” (2006), he’s been marked by an extraordinary consistency of artistic quality, studio perfection and, most importantly, the guy has a sparkling, creative musical mind that cooks up ideas for new albums boasting rock-steady, high-quality consistency. Spontaneity spilling onto the recording tape is a bit harder to feel firsthand, because the ideas, sadly, feel manufactured. “Primitive Soul” is strictly a predictable offering of apples and pears, doused in a pesticide that prevents any musical or artistic deviation, and there’s no lever left that would hint at anything other than a purely rational, routine approach to writing material for a new album.
The guy is a jack of all trades and, for “Primitive Soul” too, he once again played the bulk of the instruments in the studio and of course contributed his vocals, an important trademark of his work. The drums, just like on “Heaven Knows”, were once again handled by Rob McEwan, while the guitar soloing on Cold Day In Hell comes courtesy of yet another studio workaholic, Tommy Denander. “Primitive Soul” also keeps Steve Newman’s standard expressive musical stance, as a typical representative of the British school of melodic hard rock, or better yet, British AOR rock. So everyone who gets fired up by acts like Kick, Heartland, FM, Shadowman, The Ladder, Wildkard and, across the pond, Seventh Key, Strangeways or even Night Ranger… your ears have probably perked up quite a bit by now.
“Primitive Soul” brings a few (fleeting, pinpoint, strictly momentary) departures from “Heaven Knows”, in the sense that you can feel a touch less drama, gloom, pain… It’s a more “bright” album. But an Englishman is an Englishman, and the all-encompassing melancholy of “Primitive Soul” is once again not hard to feel. The new album boasts a somewhat more modern guitar sound. To capture that live feel in the studio, Steve Newman didn’t mutate into a many-tentacled cephalopod to play all the instruments at once like a one-man band (the seventies are far, far away…), but the live feel on “Primitive Soul” confirms that Newman has the polished, seasoned skills of a master of the recording studio. The guy has of course equipped all the songs with infectious melodicism that hits home in soaring, catchy choruses, tastefully dressed up in layered vocal harmonies that keep the atmosphere high, and he’s lifted the dynamics of the material with a sensual touch of guitar-solo interludes and passages.
Besides the refresh of livelier guitar riffing and soloing, the only novelty worth mentioning compared to “Heaven Knows”, the production delivers the usual crystal-clear coexistence and balance of instruments, with Steve’s slightly raspy but highly melodic vocals placed front and center. “Primitive Soul” is a perfectly tailored Newman album. There’s the intense, hard-hitting ballad The Rapture, one of the album’s highlights, the direct, accelerated riff-shrapnel of Give It All You Got, the atmospherically murkier mid-tempo Mystery To Me, a masterful choice to close the album, which opens on a distinctly brighter note with the adventurously bouncy Heading For Your Heart, whose high run-up is carried through the opening stretch by the following 15 Minute Revolution, a direct critique of the violence produced in the USA, and reaches an intense, predatory rock peak in the title track. You could survive without the cloyingly sweet, ear-piercing ballad Still Can’t Find The Words, but the guy sets things straight again the very next moment with the rock rally Last Flight, whose deliberately placed, standout rock n’ roll beat in the pre-chorus adds a sparkling contrast to the typically AOR chorus.
Apples and pears or not, “Primitve Soul” demands a few more spins in the CD player, say a “terrifying” three or four. The songs, especially in the second half of the album, don’t slide into the ear quite as smoothly on first listen as on its predecessor “Heaven Knows”. Still, “Primitive Soul” is a typical Steve Newman orgy from head to toe in everything it offers. The man obviously has his attic completely tidied up and comes across as artistically flawless in the technical sense. The only problem is that his music is aimed at a narrow circle of a rare and endangered breed of listener, one that is picky, faithful and irreversibly tuned, ears and all, to the legacy of eighties AOR, and that, in terms of artistic development, Newman neither discovers nor offers anything new. So “Primitive Soul” is a Newman album, ideally tailored for all the nostalgics who demand a mature touch of melody and studio perfection. “Primitive Soul” is no discovery of Christopher Columbus, but it’s yet another very, very pretty AOR rock album.
Lineup
Steve Newman – vocals, guitar, keyboards, bass guitar
Rob McEwan – drums
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Tommy Denander – guitar (solo on track no. 8)
Mark Thompson-Smith – backing vocals
Production
Steve Newman
Track List
1. Heading For Your Heart
2. 15 Minute Revolution
3. Primitive Soul
4. Still Can’t Find The Words
5. Last Flight
6. Falling Like Stone
7. For The Man I Am
8. Cold Day In Hell
9. I Get Torn
10. The Rapture
11. Give It All You Got
12. Mystery To Me
Album length: 58.58
