Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Revolution Saints
Label: Frontiers Records
Release: 2015
Duration: 53:22
Rating: 4/5
What happens when three hard rock heavyweights, I’d even say titans of hard rock, join forces? Deen Castranovo, the drummer of AOR champions Journey; Doug Aldrich, current Burning Rain guitarist and former guitarist of DIO, Whitesnake and too many others to list; and Jack Blades, bassist and singer of yet another famous “west coast” AOR veteran act, Night Ranger. A crazy combination.
They picked the name Revolution Saints, which is also the title of their studio debut. It has a whopping 12 tracks. Several factors contributed to the album coming together in almost record time: experience, mileage, routine, and above all the outstanding songwriting talent of all three musicians, who built an incredibly creative chemistry together. Two guest members of Journey also chipped in on the album: vocalist Arnell Pineda and, of course, one of the most fascinating guitarists of the rock era, Neal Schon.
The album “Revolution Saints” is a record that most strongly evokes the music of Journey. The melodic side of it, and the feel for melody throughout, is outstanding. Picture a distinctly harder version of Journey, where instead of Neal Schon’s streamlined, stylized solos (he measures out his notes very carefully and loves to float on string bends), the hot-blooded stallion Doug Aldrich steps into the spotlight with frenzied licks and hellishly fast scale runs. The guitar phrasing is also a bit sharper in the production, and the keyboard arrangements play a subordinate role this time. There’s one more very important factor on the album that keeps summoning strong Journey associations: Deen Castranovo’s vocals. At times he sounds so eerily like Steve Perry and Arnell Pineda that you sometimes have to ask why Journey even need Arenll Pineda, when Deen could sing all the vocals for them. Dream On is almost shamelessly similar to Journey. The chorus of the opener Back On My Trail will tell you everything you need to know in that regard.
The chorus melodies are extremely pompous, with an incredibly gripping melodic payoff. If no other song does it, Locked Out of Paradise will surely crawl under your skin in an instant and cast its spell on you. The trio plays with tremendous zeal and passion. The same goes for all the lead vocals, especially Deen’s! The songs are carved out in the old-school manner of songwriting in the AOR genre: two verses, a chorus, often combined with a pre-chorus, a mid-eight passage, and a repeat of the final chorus. No Einsteins here. Everything is subordinate to a sense for following the optimal melodic value, which digs in under your skin right away. And Aldrich goes absolutely wild on the solos. The guitarist has rarely found himself in such extremely melodic spheres in his career as the ones Revolution Saints occupy, which made soloing here an even bigger artistic challenge for him.
There are also songs where the influences of all three musicians’ parent bands come through in equal measure: Stranges to This Life, followed by Better World, are such songs, as is the melancholic Way to the Sun, and also a distinctly dark moment on the album, located right before the end. That’s How To Mend A Broken Heart, where Aldrich’s opening riff sounds distinctly crushing and metal-possessed. Interestingly, on Way to the Sun, where Blades sings lead vocals, guest Neal Schon comes in for the guitar solo. That’s interesting because the song is built in a way that would fit a Night Ranger album better than a Journey one, which makes for a welcome stylistic departure from the rest of the material. Doug Aldrich provides the “guitar backbone” in it.
The problem with this album is that it’s too good, or rather that it has practically no flaw. What does that mean? Deen Castranovo reminds you of Perry and Pineda with his vocals, Pineda guests on the album, and on top of that, the parts where Jack Blades comes in, who has a different vocal style, get pulled in a “Journey-esque” direction in the duets on two songs with Castranovo. As if they’d agreed on it beforehand. So the result is that the vocals are too similar to each other. That might bother someone, in fact quite a few people. Me, for instance. I honestly don’t see the point of Pineda guesting on the album, because he and Castranovo are too alike in vocal delivery and tone of voice. The band should have looked for vocal contrasts if they were going to invite guests onto the album, and made better use of Blades’ excellent voice more often, which would surely have added some welcome variety to the moods of the songs. Or they could have simply said that Castranovo sings all the songs, period, and there’d be none of this pondering in this paragraph.
The album’s strong resemblance to Journey may come as a surprise, but that’s far from a bad thing. “Revolution Saints” is an extremely beautiful, polished album. It has a lively, dynamic production, outstanding singing, a lived-in performance that grabs you from the first moment, and endless variety in the lead motifs. It’s a brilliant piece of work by three exceptional musicians who found a remarkable “chemistry” together, so let’s hope this isn’t just a project made for a single studio album, and that more will follow.
Lineup
Deen Castronovo – vocals, drums
Jack Blades – bass guitar, vocals on Turn Back Time & Way To The Sun
Doug Aldrich: guitar
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Alessandro Del Vecchio – keyboards, backing vocals, vocals on Way To The Sun
Arnel Pineda – vocals on You’re Not Alone
Neal Schon – guitar solo on Way To The Sun
Production
Alessandro Del Vecchio
Track list
1. Back On My Trail
2. Turn Back Time
3. You’re Not Alone (Feat. Arnel Pineda)
4. Locked Out Of Paradise
5. Way To The Sun (Feat. Neal Schon)
6. Dream On
7. Don’t Walk Away
8. Here Forever;
9. Strangers To This Life
10. Better World;
11. How To Mend A Broken Heart
12. In The Name Of The Father (Fernando’s Song)
