MeanTime Music 1999
Review by

Michael Morales released his last album in 1991, but he has kept himself busy producing other artists and winning Grammy awards. Anyway, now he's back, with a new album on a new label, MeanTime Music (MTM... Don't ask me what's going on!). The new album "That's The Way" follows the same path as his previous two albums, melodic rock with a big production and backing vocals á la Def Leppard's "Hysteria".

The first song "Better Way" doesn't really impress me, but the second track "Change The World" is already way better (haha...), a big ballad that might have been a better opener. "Where Does Love Live?" is even more impressive, a Rick Springfield-like uptempo track with a really catchy chorus. "That's The Way" borrows heavily from Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar On Me", but doesn't have a chorus to match. It's still an OK song though. "Blood" is another Leppardesque song, with Michael's vocals sounding very Elliot-like. Be warned, the "Whoa Whoa's" are quite infectious on this one!

"Let You In" is a good midtempo AOR track, while "What Kind Of Fool" is a ballad with a slightly toned-down production, compared to the rest of the album. "No Tomorrow" and "Maria" both remind me of Rick Springfield again, especially the latter. The Nelson-like "I Remind Me Of You" is followed by one my favourite tracks, "Driving Back To Your Heart". It's a very good AOR track and probably the most original track here, along with "No Way Out", which reminds me a bit of Michael's own "Dream Of You" from his last album.

"That's The Way" may not be the most original album you'll hear this year, but is still a solid effort from a very talented guy. And it's his third "good one" in a row - That's admirable, right?

Escape Music 2002
Review by 28 September 2002

Here's yet another future classic release by the English label Escape this year. This may not be a spanking new CD though as it's been out there for quite a while in Japan already. Ehh... almost ten years to be frank (eight to be correct) and it's been considered a classic release by the hardcore fans, for many, many years by now.

This was the first project by glass-breaking vocalist Tony Harnell (TNT, Westworld) after TNT originally broke up in November/December 1992. It started out as a one-man acoustic show as Harnell played some cover gigs and TNT songs live. This turned into Morning Wood's excellent studio CD with mostly acoustic guitars, bass & drums by some very experienced musicians. Namely: guitarist Al Pitrelli (Joe Lynn Turner, Widowmaker, Asia, Alice Cooper, Flesh & Blood, Savatage, Megadeth etc.), Danny Miranda (Blue Oyster Cult etc.) on bass and drummer Chuck Bonfante (Joe Lynn Turner, Michael Bolton Band, Saraya, Flesh & Blood, Garbo Talks etc).

SPV/Inside Out 2003
Review by 27 szeptember 2003

I had lots of interviews with this guy while he was with Spock’s Beard and when he announced in his last talk with me that he would leave the band I was baffled. God wanted him to do something else with his life and I thought that Neal was lost for the music world forever. But to my big surprise he now already releases a new album and even a double one. First I was a bit sceptical because his previous two solo albums were not exactly my cup of tea. But after listening to this mega-project I can tell you that “Testimony” is one of the prog rock highlights of the year 2003. If you liked “Snow” then you can buy this album without even listening to it. Of course you have to “deal” with the religious lyrics, which makes this a very intense and personal album; but the music is absolutely superb.

The album consists of 29 songs and the total playing time comes up to 137 minutes. There are seven instrumental tracks which bring out the best in Neal and if you listen to e.g. “Overture No.1”, “Interlude” or “Overture No.2” you will experience lots of diversity, swinging rhythms, dazzling keyboard solos and also amazing and melodic guitar solos. The highlights of the first cd are without any doubt “Colder In The Sun” – a symphonic rock song with typical Neal Morse trade marks - ,”Break Of Day”- again a great prog song with lots of variety and some instrumental groovy parts – and the Spock’s Beard Song “Long Story”, especially the Beatlelish vocal passages are wonderful. Songs that need some habituation are “Somber Days”, a gloomy, very quiet track and the most emotional ballad of the whole album “It’s All I Can Do”; with a howling guitar solo!!

Magna Carta 2002
Review by Endre "Bandi" Hübner 6 March 2002

To be honest I was a bit afraid when I saw that this album came out on Magna Carta (I have not heard Steve's first album on the label). The previous releases of the label that I got to hear always left ambivalent feelings behind, some of my favorite guitarists came up with weird jazz/fusion albums released by the label, and they weren't what one expected from them. Steve Morse's "High Tension Vires" album is one of my favorite instrumental albums; I was hoping to hear something like that instead of another experimenting fusion album. All in all I ended up liking the album even if it's somewhere between the two extremes mentioned above.

The label suggested to have all the up-tempo rocking songs in the first part and all the mellow, slow-ish ones in the second part of the album, hence the title "Split Decision". The first part is the one with the more experimenting, jazzy, sometimes even funky parts mixed with traditional guitar rock, the track "Mechanical Frenzy" would be a great example of the mixing of different songwriting and playing approaches as it combines all the strength of the first part of the album. Van Romaine (drums) and Dave LaRue (bass) have more opportunities to show their extraordinary performing ability on these songs than in the second, more mellow, more guitar melodies orientated part of the album. "Great Mountain Spirits" would please any fans of melodies, there are wonderful sublime textures all through the song, for those more into vocal albums: it recalls the spirit of the last Dare album. Beautiful.

Perris Records 2004
Review by Urban "Wally" Wallström,
15 February 2004

Hang on a minute... is that the bastard son of Jizzy Pearl (Love/Hate) and Vince Neil (Mötley Crue) on vocals or what??? Nah, but it's damn close actually as LA Glamsters' Mother Mercy returns with their second release. Ehhh... I've noticed that they've already split up though and the singer is now fronting some LA nu-metal act instead. Bummer I guess or maybe not?

Yeah, I guess it's a bummer after all as fans of "Blackout In The Red Room" (Love/Hate) and 80's Mötley Crue will probably get a kick outta' this. Check out "Waste Of Skin" for some cool, old school, sleaze/glam 'ala Love/Hate vs. Every Mother's Nightmare. Not every man's poison (heh, heh, Poison, no pun attended) perhaps, but I find it to be rather fun, simple, rock'n'roll. "Mercy's Law" is very much like Mötley Crue back in the heydays with a very drunken Vince Neil upfront, sweet!!! They also have a couple of heavier tunes included and "Machine Gun" is exactly as heavy as the title suggests. Like one of those really tunes that Love/Hate did on their third or fourth album by the way.

USG Records 1998
Review by

Featuring Joe Lynn Turner and Jeff Watson (Nightranger), one would expect Mother's Army to be an AOR group, but that's not the case exactly. They are more like a traditional heavy rock band in the vein of Deep Purple and the likes.

The curiously titled "N.D.E." starts the show, and it's an OK track which suggests that one can expect good things. Next up is "Way Of The World", which reminds me of "King Of Dreams" by Purple, yet something seems to be missing. The next couple of tracks pass these ears without making much of an impact, and I am beginning to lose my interest.

"Do What I Like" is the next noteworthy track, if only for the fact that it sounds just like Manic Eden. Not bad but not that special either... and the same goes for the rest of the album, expect for "The Code", which is a powerful catchy rocker.

All in all, a bit of a disappointment for me, but Deep Purple-fans might disagree with me. And if you are one, by all means check this one out!

Indie 2002
Review by 11 January 2003

Somehow the very stylish packaging of this album lead me to believe that Mothernight might be a moody rock band. Not to mention that James Christian has a very cool song by the same title...okay, that's AOR trivia, enough of that. Anyway, the songs - or short pieces of music actually - are not rock or AOR, they are very lightweight instrumental music, which draws influences from 60'ies pop. Nice? Yes. Pleasant? Yes. Memorable? No. Once again, I am afraid that this CD was sent to a wrong medium, as I fail to see how the music of Mothernight would have much appeal to 90% of our readers.

Review by

I've already seen two different titles for this album "Dr. Feelgood - the Ultimate Tribute to M.C" and "Kickstart My Heart - a Tribute to M.C". I'm not sure which title it came out with or if this is the final artwork (I hope it is cuz it's damn cool!).

Anyway the track listing must be something like the one I'm about to review though I found some bonus tracks on the net too and I don't know whether they made it to any of the versions. Seems like things around the tribute album are at least as uncertain as around the band itself.

In the flood of different tribute albums this is a quite pleasant surprise. The sound is good enough and most of the bands did a good job on covering these tunes. Gary Schutt's "Live Wire" is even better than the original, and it even features a medley in the middle of the song where we get "previews" of some other Crüe tunes. Great idea and a wonderful "kickstart" for the album! Both Spiders & Snakes and Babylon A.D do a good job on "Public Enemy No." 1 and on "Take Me To The Top". I was extremely glad to hear Babylon A.D. back in a killing form. Then Lunatic Candy Kreep ruined "Shout At The Devil". What the heck is this??? The refrain is okay but the verse?! Words can't describe it, you have to hear it yourselves! Some mumbling, humming in a voice of a transvestite or what?! Arrrrrrgh!

Pink Cream 69 restores my faith with Looks That Kill. This one is quite faithful to the original (even the bell sound on the drums is there.) and the vocals are so much superior to Vince's. A killer version, one of the highlights of the album. I wouldn't wanna go on with each of the tracks.

Some of the cult AOR bands featured there: Heaven with "Home Sweet Home" - again: the vocals raise their version above the original, Heaven's Edge with "Don 't Go Away Mad" - I'd say the original is better in this case but their version smokes too. All in all it's a nice tribute album and if you like the originals get this one too cuz it concentrates on the glory, early days of the band and forgets about the crappy releases of the 90s.

Indie 200?
Review by Endre "Bandi" Hübner 9 May 2002

No, I made no spelling mistake in the title of the album, the artwork and the website both mention this title… Let me start this review with a quote from the band's website about their history: "The band came together just for fun in September 2000. Two rehearsals later we recorded our first CD Colors of Utopia containing 6 tracks. Four of the songs where [note: I suppose they meant „were"] made during the weekend we recorded! Another 3 rehersals [note: rehearsal] later we recorded our second CD "A new begining" [note: they type it this way everywhere on their site too], containing another 13 NEW Rockin´ tracks!!!" The website does not contain any info on how many rehearsals (or English lessons) more it took to come up with "What Have You Got To Loose"…

Now seriously: I really can't see a point in recording a full length album with poor production when you are unsigned. I can't believe people are going to buy a weak independent album in masses (to make the band rich) and definitely none of the record labels is going to pick them hearing this record. However I have to admit that the album has some strong points too, namely the guitar work, the riffs, and some of the solos are pretty good, some of the grooves by the rhythm section are also okay (even though the bad production makes them almost inaudible to human ear). That's basically all I could list here, because the songwriting is lacking, the vocalist's performance is like a punch below the belt, off-key, completely untrained, and melodies are simply non-existent. If somebody wants to play 70s influenced hard rock, he has to be a lot more prepared for it.

CMC 2000
Review by

Well, they definitely did. I mean they got over Paul Gilbert leaving the band. The replacement (Ritchie Kotzen filling the guitarist position) was so successful that a careless listener wouldn't even recognize the change. He was the best solution for a change that isn't a change at all. Technically he is able to pull PG's virtuoso tricks off live and having heard this album he absolutely managed to fit his playing to the Mr. Big standards.

"Electrified" kicks off the album and sounds like any of the first tracks on Mr. Big albums. There's even that usual unisono guitar-bass scale in the song (so that anyone could believe this is still PG playing.). It's a typical Mr. Big album, you get the usual ballads, the midtempo rockers, and that thrilling musical performance you'd expect. "Superfantastic", "Try To Do Without It", but especially "My New Religion" have the potential to sell this album to the masses again but to be honest I doubt this one would make it close to "Lean Into It" or "Bump Ahead".

Old time fans might be satisfied with the usual quality stuff or be annoyed by saying they just copy themselves album by album. Who knows?! I'd vote this time for the first option (not sure whether I could take one more of the same album from them) and hope that this time Ritchie won't get fired after an album (as he was in Poison). Someone, please tell him not to screw Pat Torpey's wife! (Inside joke for Poison fans in the know, namely that Ritchie was fired for screwing Rikki Rocket's wife.)

Frontiers 2004
Review by Endre "Bandi" Hübner,
3 February 2004

Believe it or not Frontiers also caught the tribute-epidemic many of the smaller labels of the genre "suffer" from. However - since Frontier is obviously the market leading label of the genre - the line- up for this Mr. Big tribute is as impressive as it can only get. Still the whole thing smells as fishy as all those other "tribute" albums, especially if we take into account that 3 musicians of the latest Mr. Big line-up are featured on the album.

Having to go through countless tribute albums lately I have developed a measurement system for their tracks. If the track is better (it happens VERY rarely) than the original it is a plus, if it's different but still enjoyable it's zero and if it's worse than the original it's a minus. Yet this system was absolutely useless with Mr. Big because it's almost impossible to make a Mr. Big song better than the original. So there was only one way to do this review: going through the album track by track trying to list their strengths (if they had any) and their weaknesses.

One very positive thing to mention is the production of the album (by Pat Regan) that - unlike 90% of the tribute albums - is really great, the tracks sound as good as the originals. "Mr. Big" opens the album with Paul Rodgers on vocals (and the rest of the musicians of Mr. Big on it). Youngsters may not be aware that it's the cover of a cover of a cover (yes, it's as crappy as it sounds!) and Paul was the vocalist of the band Free who wrote this song. This is the only excuse I can think of for this version of the track. This song was made come to life by the way Mr. Big played it and mostly because of Eric Martin's extraordinary vocal talent. It's not easy to fill Eric's shoes and it was unfair to make Paul try to do so because the comparison is inevitable. Bad choice. Not to mention that it's the worst possible choice for an opener as the song is dragging its leg anyway. Thankfully "Take Cover" featuring Doug Pinnick and Ty Tabor of King's X washes the bad taste away. These guys never fail to impress and they add a special and rather enjoyable flavor to the original song making it live up to the original. "Colorado Bulldog" brings a musically different version again with Marty Friedman and Lanny Cordolla re- working the guitar tracks. I adore them as players and the changes are okay, interesting, technically brilliant, it's just a personal taste thing that I prefer Paul Gilbert's version. Joe Lynn Turner on vox does justice to the song. [Dare I say he sounds better than he did on his own albums in the last couple of years?!] It's nice to hear the man rip again!

I could have definitely done without "Wild World" especially because musically this version is even more simple as the cover of the original. John Waite's minimizing vocal style suits it perfectly. [For as long as I can remember I've always had a strange feeling about Waite. Whenever I hear him singing I always want to shout something like: "Man, you can give much more than this. Come on and let it out! Work a little!" Well, this is the first song he sang where I felt there was no need to give more than that. One couldn't make it any better. The song sucks, no matter what the vocalist does.] If I had the feeling that JLT did better here than he had done on his own albums, I had the very same feeling with Glenn Hughes. Somehow his albums failed to impress me but his contribution to the rock opera Nostradamus and here to "Price You Gotta Pay" are just awesome. Chuck Wright's raunchy bass-lines and Lanny's tricky guitar-work spiced up with Steve Lukather's solo make it another welcome addition to the album. But the real breakthrough is "Promise Her the Moon" featuring Ann Wilson of Heart. It's one of the most soulful Mr. Big ballads anyway and I know it may sound like a blasphemy but this version is even better than the original. Ann sounds as good as ever; her voice makes the song shine, and the extra female backing vocals along with Ann's own interpretation of the vocal lines add a whole new dimension to the song. This one track alone was worth all the fuss about this whole project and it makes the album a must buy not only for Mr. Big but for Heart fans as well.