Steve Lukather
Lukather

The excellent Californian guitarist has so far released seven albums under his own name, and this is his debut dating back to 1989, with the main artist being only thirty-two, yet already having seven albums under his belt with Toto, in addition to a staggering list of collaborations with other artists' albums, from Michael Jackson to Aretha Franklin, from Tubes to Lionel Richie. The album mirrors, for a good half, the atmospheres and situations of Luke's supergroup origin... nonetheless, there is a sufficient number of juicy digressions towards a different type of rock, more jammed and essential, less structured and polished.

One of these is the sparkling interplay that erupts between the lead and guests Steve Stevens, also a valiant guitarist, and keyboardist Jan Hammer, who are engaged in extending the third track "Swear Your Love" immensely through ferocious back-and-forth exchanges in the long instrumental sections. The two Steves compete to see who can torment the tremolo lever of their instrument the most (Stevens wins...), while the third companion keeps up the competition by extracting typically guitar-like phrases from a synthesizer.

The opening track "Twist The Knife" is, moreover, a real homage to his friend Eddie Van Halen, who handed over one of his typical classic metal riffs and then took his place on bass, enjoying from a privileged position how his colleague manages his style. In fact, for each of the eleven tracks present, Lukather chooses to work with a compositional partner, often also executively. Already mentioned is Stevens, also the co-author of another less successful track titled "Darkest Day Of The Year", then there's a collaboration with the well-known (in the USA) AOR singer-songwriter Richard Marx titled "Swear Your Love", as well as a couple of fifty fifty numbers with guitarist and producer Danny Kortchmar (Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Don Henley and a thousand others on his resume) called "Drive a Crooked Road" and "Steppin’ On Top Of Your World".

The most precious added value, however, comes, in my opinion, from Mike Landau, also a guitarist and a top-tier talent in the good circles of Los Angeles (Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis, even Pink Floyd in his endless list of collaborations): one of his deep, haunting flanger-drenched arpeggios, with impeccable sound and nothing short of magnificent, leads the remarkable "Got My Way".

The rest of the collaborations then come from songwriter Diane Warren, a pervasive presence at the time in the AOR scene, here at work in the skippable "Lonely Beat Of My Heart", certainly the weakest episode of the batch, and finally from Randy Goodrum, also of the same ilk as Warren, a successful yet often cloying composer of sugary American-style songs for others, unfortunately present in as many as three tracks.

These last two collaborations somewhat diminish the album's appeal, which still remains more than respectable. After all, the excellent Luke will immediately extricate himself from this initial situation, essentially framed as "Toto's leftovers", through a second solo work spectacularly good titled "Candyman" and subsequently with another five albums, which, despite ups and downs, generously display the quality, musical openness, availability, grit, and craft of this great musician.