Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Lukather, Steve
Label: Mascot Records
Release: 2013
Running time: 45:56
Rating: 4/5
Steve Lukather is regarded as one of the best guitarists in the world, given the many layers of his musical craft. The guy has been in great creative form lately: three studio albums in five years. An enviable consistency. At the same time, he’s been touring with the reactivated Toto “Seventh One”-era lineup. After “All’s Well That Ends Well” (2010), it looks like a period has arrived when things in Lukather’s private life calmed down enough that he can serve up a brighter, let’s say more positive, optimistic album.
What’s more. By the general feel of it, “Transition” is one of the most accessible, quickest-to-win-you-over records “Luke” has put out to date. You could say Steve Lukather has poured more of that Toto-style songwriting rhetoric into it. There are fewer experimental excursions; they’re cut down to a bare minimum or kept very moderate in the arrangements, placed in the song’s space with restraint, so that they can’t in any way chip away at the compact form of the main structures (verse, chorus). It’s a more thought-out album with more control, and at the same time it’s steeped in a terrific feel for the soft blending of the elements that make up the sonic landscape. Even the instrumental “Transition”, where Lukather’s inexhaustible love of jazz rock fusion shines through, tells you this is first and foremost a compact instrumental, where improvisation plays second fiddle to the leading phrases, and where clearly defined melodicism and greater accessibility flourish, even for less demanding listeners.
There are quite a few moments on the album, let’s say quite a few songs, that Toto themselves could easily adopt. From the opener “Judgement Day”, “Once Again”, “Last Man Standing” to “Right the Wrong” and “Do I Stand Alone”. They pull toward the “Tambu” / “Kingdom Of Desire” era, probably also because the lead vocals are handled by Lukather. “Luke” has moved closer to tighter, more clearly defined arrangements. Since the musician strives for a sensitive fusing of the building blocks that create the soundscape of his records, he feels obliged to look into the rhetoric of such approaches as the finest pop rock acts know them. “Luke” has this down with the pinky of his left hand. No wonder everyone wanted him, from Michael Jackson and Richard Marx to Lionel Richie, and it’s even less surprising that lately he’s been roaming the touring circuit with Beatle Ringo Starr. Word is that “Luke” once even got an offer from the great Miles Davis to join his backing band. He did record with Miles, too. So for Luke, there have long been no secrets left.
“Creep Motel”, a song that could instantly land on some Steely Dan album, is a reaction to the musician’s outrage at what Facebook activity can bring you in the negative sense. Especially when “freaks” start trashing your Facebook profile, to whom Luke dedicated, among other things, these lines in the lyrics: “Save your bullshit, you know the smell, I know the devil has reserved your place in hell … ” “Creep Motel” is a song of typical, barely perceptible blending of elements of jazz, blues, pop and of course rock. A mix of extraordinary sophistication. An approach that demands an exceptional measure of subtlety and soft finesse, something Toto and Steve Lukather have always handled superbly, and something that makes them such highly regarded performers. When it comes to making the sound picture work at its best, “Luke” thought of everything. He backed the motifs in places with choir-like vocal harmonies (pre-choruses, chorus melodies), and on the other side deepened the reach of the rhythms by adding percussion, which reinforced and loosened up the basic grooves. His playing is once again soft, organic, lively, agile and above all “universal”. In “Right the Wrong” he latches onto almost Floyd-like slide guitar lines (chorus), in “Smile” (a reworking of the main theme from the music for Charlie Chaplin’s 1936 film “Modern Times”) Lukather, inspired to restructure the arrangements, turned to Jeff Beck once more, while “Rest Of The World” hints that on his latest solo tours Luke has often played “Little Wing” by Jimi Hendrix.
On “Transition” “Luke” has again turned to reducing the number of notes he uses, subordinating his creative drive to a search for a greater grab in the melodic payoff and a more compact punch in the songs. Still, “Luke” remains extremely sophisticated and once again astonishes with layered playing of great elasticity, adapting to different genre structures inside the arrangements and weaving them through one another. As always, with a practically invisible, barely perceptible melding of them. And it’s precisely this attribute of “Luke’s” musical expression that carries the greatest value in his authorship.
Maybe after the more restrained “Rest of the World” and the “Beck-ish” twisting instrumental of the adapted “Smile”, the album’s closing wind-down could have used a punchier closer in the vein of the album opener, like “Judgement Day”. But that’s a minor quibble. All in all, “Transition” is, from head to toe, another outstanding studio achievement from Lukather. An album with a few changes that are very welcome, which makes “Transition” a slightly different record when you compare it to his two previous studio efforts. The transition phase was a success!
Lineup
Steve Lukather – vocals, guitar
CJ Vanston – keyboards, backing vocals
Steve Weingart – keyboards on tracks 5 and 9
Renee Jones – bass on track 3, backing vocals on track 8
Leeland Sklar – bass on tracks 1 and 2
Nathan East – bass on track 8
John Pierce – bass on tracks 4, 6, and 7
Tal Wilkenfeld – bass on track 5
Eric Valentine – drums on tracks 6, 7, and 8
Gregg Bissonette – drums on tracks 2 and 5
Chad Smith – drums on track 4
Toss Panos – drums on tracks 1 and 3
Lenny Castro – percussion on tracks 2, 3, 6, and 8
Trev Lukather – “crunchy” guitar on track 4
Phil Collen – backing vocals on track 4
Jenny Douglas – backing vocals on tracks 2 and 7
Richard Page – backing vocals on tracks 4 and 6
Kristina Helene – backing vocals on track 4
Jack Raines – backing vocals on track 8
Production
Steve Lukather & CJ Vanston
Track list
1. Judgement Day
2. Creep Motel
3. Once Again
4. Right the Wrong
5. Transition
6. Last Man Standing
7. Do I Stand Alone
8. Rest of the World
9. Smile
