Richard Page (vocals and bass), Pat Mastellotto (drums-www.patmastellotto.com), Steve George (keyboards), and Steve Farris (guitar - www.stevefarriss.com) are four American guys who choose the name Mr. Mister to play pop-rock with A.O.R restorative and hard citrosodina to help the audience across the ocean digest spicy guitars, which their second LP "Welcome To The Real World," a luxurious shooting star of November 1985, serves in substantial doses.

The band works in the light of day. The members are excellent songwriters for other artists and also experts in their instruments, still active today, so the band's career was predicted to be brilliant, full of successes and endless tours, as per the best tradition of the American dream. Yet the group, after this feat, disappears from the hit parade, also due to a limited compositional ability as a group: the pop cartridges have already been fired in the U.S. charts. So "Welcome to The Real World" is pop-rock with some hard traits, but it also contains harmless songs lacking bite, like "Don't Slow Down," characterized by tender keyboards and Richard Page's suffering voice, the same one that dominates the slow, rarefied, colorless, pop-doom, soporific "Run To Her" that drags on tiredly for four minutes: a sort of B-side of "A Different Corner" by ex-Wham George Michael. Among singles with significant radio airplay, with occasionally effected drums, the majestic and dreamlike "Broken Wings" (No. 1 in the U.S.) stands out, also presented at Sanremo 1986 and equipped with a targeted videoclip that enhances its ethereal, rarefied atmosphere, all centered on the reflective Page-Fogg, who eventually sits in a church while the falcon-Passepartout joins him and a ray of light enters, as fitting as the lyrics by the lyricist John Lang:

"...So take these broken wings/And learn to fly again/Learn to live so free/When we hear the voices sing/The book of love will open/And let us in, yes, yes/Let us in/Let us in..."

Page's voice is never monotonous, but sets an elastic band between a calm and a more aggressive singing, always controlled like the anger of a clouded lion, with some vague reminiscence of Gordon Sumner in "Truth Hits Everybody" mode. This nice quality of Mr. Mister is thwarted by themselves with a few too many easy slides, some yielding to easy choruses. In the video for "Broken Wings" you can see Page's admiration for Sting, how he moves, with the bass strapped over his shoulder, similar to the Police's frontman, even in head movements and magnetic gaze. Shrewd and enjoyable "Is It Love," the third single released, combining pop (catchy refrain + wallpaper keyboard) and hard rock, with Farris' zigzag distortion solo, recoded and diluted, a sort of rock alimentary bolus flowing down the stomach of hungry power pop fans, with dance rhythm (and it's unclear why Alex Krull's Atrocity didn't cover this song): video with checkerboard floor, ethereal pin-ups spinning around and the band playing in a corner, with Page in the usual magnetic "ghe pensi mi" gaze (he declined to replace Peter Cetera in Chicago and Bobby Kimball in Toto).

"Kyrie" is another tasty tidbit with mystical charm (and another No. 1 in the United States), to be sung at the top of one's lungs in arenas, as seen in the video, but after two or three listens it forces me to move on to Terrorizer's "World Downfall". Soft-pop strokes that do no harm and not even cause neck and ears to flex, except for the lively "Black/White" which is the still attractive hard rock opener, with Farris in the limelight, a song that never tires, plunging into the keyboards of "Uniform Of Youth," that drip sweet notes and passing A.O.R guitar, that greets us before taking the train to the city of our teenage memories, also thanks to the engaging solo. A pleasant record, with tight-knit musicians, especially Steve Farris with his lead guitar interventions (but also Steve George with the keyboard background, see "My Own Hands"), overshadowed by some shaky episodes and the dreadful "Run To Her". All things considered, it would have become a killer album by removing some filler tracks.

After the release of the third album "Go On," with little commercial success, Mr. Mister manage to record a fourth one (with the collaboration of Trevor Rabin), which however will never be released. Pat Mastellotto will end up playing with King Crimson and Richard Page will write "I'll Remember" by Madonna. Of Mr. Mister not even a shadow remains.

Tracklist and Samples

01   Black/White (04:19)

02   Uniform of Youth (04:26)

03   Don't Slow Down (04:29)

04   Run to Her (03:38)

05   Into My Own Hands (05:13)

06   Is It Love (03:34)

07   Kyrie (04:25)

08   Broken Wings (05:46)

09   Tangent Tears (03:20)

10   Welcome to the Real World (04:19)

Loading comments  slowly