pier_paolo_farina

Overall, a disappointing album: the passionate, acidic, and sexy "fire" that flooded the first three records of their career is completely absent in this reunion, which renews the sound and the instrumental balance but not the inspiration. After all, the guys are now seventy years old, and one cannot expect them to have the energy of twenty-year-olds.
It's still nice to hear Rolie's Hammond reunited with Carlos's Chicano guitar (meaning Mexican-American... at the beginning of the review, you repeated yourself: do your research when using unusual terms if you want to write well), a magical combination.
Another inaccuracy: Neal Schon is not a rhythm guitarist but rather one of the most admired soloists in the USA. Legions of his peers (Van Halen, to name one) have always crowded under the stage at his band's (Journey) concerts to absorb a bit of his great melodic inclination. Two-thirds of the solos on this album are his, those slightly shifted to the left in the stereo image, more impetuous and with less "pick click" compared to those of Santana, which are instead slightly to the right and, above all, more dynamic, with more "breath," pauses, and ideas, I must say. Perhaps just because the album is his and Schon is merely doing his homework this time. Or simply because Carlos is even more melodically gifted than Schon, who knows. We might be talking about the two most melodic American soloists there are.

I was at the toll booth in Forlì, just past ten-thirty. A tollbooth attendant had just listened to an announcement on the radio and was sharing the news with a colleague, and then with me, as I stood about a meter away from them hitchhiking. The afternoon before, also hitchhiking, I had left Bologna and reached Forlì, staying with a friend and fellow musician with whom I played in a band. With the lightness and recklessness of youth, I didn’t think too much about it, and my mother’s warm embrace of relief upon my return home caught me a bit by surprise.
I was a bit lucky that time... I could have been in the wrong place at the wrong time... who knows how many times I had found myself at Bologna station on a Saturday morning waiting for the train to go back home for the weekend. I hadn’t told my parents that I would leave the day before to spend an evening and a night in Forlì; they only knew I was returning that Saturday morning...
What a damn country Italy is, still covering up the responsible for this horrific infamy for the basest and most abominable “state” interest.

Hey Mario, where are you in L.A.? I'll come to visit you when I pass by.

Thank you, you are a friend.

And the mask on the ground?

The popsicle? Yes, actually... I really like the reflection of the photographic light diffuser around the navel and then up towards the left breast: it looks like a saxophone.

This is truly a great album, one of the best pop things from the seventies and therefore of all time. If all four of them had stayed together for another five years, we would have seen some great things.

I really miss Tears for Fears... it's a shame that their spontaneous reunion from the last decade was just a one-off. Together with Prefab Sprout, they were truly the best of the 80s pop wave, the same wave that, while bringing significant satisfaction to both, chose to mythologize 100% and grant dazzling careers for decades to other people who are considerably less deserving: I'm referring primarily to Madonna, but also to that Michael Jackson, despite his great talent.

Edit to the review: "I corrected a literal typo and removed unnecessary spaces between the sentences." See the old version Pagina non trovata

fede@: at least give "Infinity" and "Escape" another try, if you haven't already. Lights, Something to Hide, Opened the Door, Who's Crying Now, and Open Arms are great ballads, Don't Stop Believing is a superb piece of melodic hard rock.