JEFF SCOTT SOTO – Retribution

8/10

JEFF SCOTT SOTO - Retribution - 8/10

8/10

Summary

Frontiers Music
Release date: November 10, 2017

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User Review

5/10 (2 votes)

Journeyman (and once Journey-man) Jeff Scott Soto has had a busy year in a career of busy years, having lent his considerable vocal talents to the all-star band Sons of Apollo and their October debut and Metal album of the year candidate Psychotic Symphony. Here he is a month later with Retribution, the first album under his own name since 2012’s Damage Control. Guitars and bass are handled primarily by longtime collaborator Howie Simon, who co-produces with Jeff. Drums are provided by Edu Cominato. The album is predominantly a mix of the Hard Rock and Classic Metal stylings that JSS has been delivering at a high level for over thirty years since his early records with Yngwie Malmsteen’s Rising Force, with a couple Metal ballads thrown in. There’s the deeply moving “Song For Joey”, recorded in memory of Jeff’s brother who died earlier this year, “Feels Like Forever”, and the beautiful acoustic closing track “Autumn”. While it might be difficult picking the top highlights from a career as varied as Jeff Scott Soto’s, Retribution is clearly a high watermark for Howie Simon, whose playing and soloing on cuts like “Dedicate To You”, “Inside Outside” and “Breakout” is nothing less than thrilling.

Soto has such a great Metal voice that he could sing anything—a dull political speech, a laundry list, a Christian Metal band with Jerry Only and Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein–and as long as it was set to hard guitars and drums and he’d make it enjoyable to listen to. When his voice is paired with songs and playing as solid as what can be found on Retribution, though, listeners connect with actual greatness.

TUNE INTO METALEXPRESSRADIO.COM at NOON & MIDNIGHT (EST) / 6:00 & 18:00 (CET) TO HEAR THE BEST TRACKS FROM THIS UPCOMING RELEASE!!!

Jeff Scott Soto

Author

Daniel Waters

Daniel was a reviewer here at Metal Express Radio. Iron Maiden’s Piece Of Mind wasn’t the first Metal album he owned, but it was the one that lifted the lid off his soul when he received the record as a gift on his 15th birthday. He's been a Metal fan ever since. He's probably best known as the author of various Young Adult novels such as the Generation Dead series and the ghost story Break My Heart 1,000 Times, now also a major motion picture entitled I Still See You, starring Bella Thorne. Writing and music, especially Heavy Metal music, has always been inextricably linked in his mind and career. His first paid gig doing any type of writing was for Cemetery Dance, where he wrote a horror-themed music column called Dead Beats, and when he was writing the first Generation Dead novel he had a ritual where he started his writing day with a Metal playlist that kicked off with “Crushing Belial” by Shadows Fall.
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