MR

Neals -so u -exotica preview

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/so-u/id853059524

Check out EXOTICA...

The video is out too (see Neal's twitter). Pretty much Neal and the guys standing in front of a Windows 95 screensaver. Deen puts on a hell of a clinic. Unsure about the rest. Need more samples.

koberry wrote:http://www.vintageguitar.com/16927/guitar-legend-neal-schon-teams-up-with-marco-mendoza-and-deen-castronovo-for-smoking-new-fusion-and-blues-inspired-hard-rock-album/

On first listen, I really like it. A very listenable jam and everybody is playing great.

Thanks for the link!

Sorry I'm totally bored. It began with a La Raza Del Sol feel, but it never delivers with the soaring licks and melodic spectrum LRDS does. And what is up with that video? It looks like some kid cut in on iMovie. And was there even an attempt to match the picture with the track? Deen's seen working the high hat while we hear him on the ride cymbal.

This is how I'm left feeling with most of these Neal solo instrumental efforts. Never enough there there.

How is Deens vocals on this. The preview was good, but with some vocals by Deen it could be great.

fuck that was boring..

Amazon.com has posted samples. Marco seems to be channeling Lenny Kravitz(maybe a little JSS) or something. I like the mix of instrumental and vocal pieces. Would rather have something like Late Nite than another IonU.

http://www.amazon.com/So-U-Neal-Schon/d ... marturl-20

The_Noble_Cause wrote:Amazon.com has posted samples. Marco seems to be channeling Lenny Kravitz(maybe a little JSS) or something. I like the mix of instrumental and vocal pieces. Would rather have something like Late Nite than another IonU.

http://www.amazon.com/So-U-Neal-Schon/d ... marturl-20

It sounds interesting, and very eclectic. I thought Neal was also going to sing on this. If he does, I can't recognize his track from the samples. It sounds like half Mendoza and half Castronovo to me.

I think Neal said he sings two. Maybe he's been taking lessons? The Deen ones are obviously very recognizable.

Nap inducing crap.

Maybe NS gets all the shredding & extended solos out of his system on this album so Journey can get back to being Journey, and not all the Eclipse crap.

Btw, Deen seems to be playing with a little more finesse and not just bashing away. That's cool. And I absolutely love MM's big bass licks & riffs. He plays with such great feel...compliments NS very well, or maybe the other way around.


later~

Arkansas wrote:Maybe NS gets all the shredding & extended solos out of his system on this album so Journey can get back to being Journey, and not all the Eclipse crap.

You mean more songs like "With Your Love", "Loved By You", and "All the Way"? No thanks. Extended guitar solos suit me just fine. Eclipse has a ton of stuff to tickle every hardcore Journey fan's ears.

Honestly, I don't get where everyone feels Eclipse is that different for Journey. If you took an album like Frontiers and put the B sides up front and the A sides in the back, you would have an album similar to Eclipse. Granted, Eclipse is longer and has more extensive soloing, etc., but it also has a lot of tracks not much different at all from 80s era singles...on the B side.

Back on topic, I think So U sounds anything but boring from the samples, and I am looking forward to hearing it.

Arkansas wrote: Btw, Deen seems to be playing with a little more finesse and not just bashing away. That's cool. And I absolutely love MM's big bass licks & riffs. He plays with such great feel...compliments NS very well, or maybe the other way around.

later~

Agreed. Mendoza matches Schon really well, and I also thought Deen's drumming sounded really cool and textured on Exotica.

Majestic wrote:Honestly, I don't get where everyone feels Eclipse is that different for Journey. If you took an album like Frontiers and put the B sides up front and the A sides in the back, you would have an album similar to Eclipse. Granted, Eclipse is longer and has more extensive soloing, etc., but it also has a lot of tracks not much different at all from 80s era singles...on the B side.

Back on topic, I think So U sounds anything but boring from the samples, and I am looking forward to hearing it.

Eclipse is a great album. I like the Deen vocaled tracks a lot from the samples of So U.

The_Noble_Cause wrote:

Arkansas wrote:Maybe NS gets all the shredding & extended solos out of his system on this album so Journey can get back to being Journey, and not all the Eclipse crap.

You mean more songs like "With Your Love", "Loved By You", and "All the Way"? No thanks. Extended guitar solos suit me just fine. Eclipse has a ton of stuff to tickle every hardcore Journey fan's ears.

TOTALLY. I don't GET people's disdain of "Eclipse". It's a great, varied album. I also don't get Journey not pushing it more. They really should have. Everyone at the time before it was released whined about "Journey needs to rock" so they did and everyone goes "Journey needs to get back to the power ballads or the "journey sound""--- ????!?!?!?!?! The new tunes on Revelation and Eclipse were great and I prefer them to Arrival simply because Arrival was way too ballad heavy. Still a great album, but not a "go to" one for me. (as far as the re-records, they were apparently a necessary evil and outside of "Only the Young" I don't listen to them much". Love Pineda's version of OTY though).
On NS new album- Lenny Kravitz is right! Totally. Deen's vocals are cool and I'm surprised he wasn't featured more heavily. I did hear a snippet of Neal signing- which I actually don't mind. I like Neal's voice. It's very Jimi Hendrix to me and NOT that different from what I hear from Mendoza, so I'm not sure why he just didn't sing the tunes Mendoza does. (But I've only heard these Amazon clips).
New music is cool.

brywool wrote:

The_Noble_Cause wrote:

Arkansas wrote:Maybe NS gets all the shredding & extended solos out of his system on this album so Journey can get back to being Journey, and not all the Eclipse crap.

You mean more songs like "With Your Love", "Loved By You", and "All the Way"? No thanks. Extended guitar solos suit me just fine. Eclipse has a ton of stuff to tickle every hardcore Journey fan's ears.

TOTALLY. I don't GET people's disdain of "Eclipse". It's a great, varied album. I also don't get Journey not pushing it more. They really should have. Everyone at the time before it was released whined about "Journey needs to rock" so they did and everyone goes "Journey needs to get back to the power ballads or the "journey sound""--- ????!?!?!?!?! The new tunes on Revelation and Eclipse were great and I prefer them to Arrival simply because Arrival was way too ballad heavy. Still a great album, but not a "go to" one for me. (as far as the re-records, they were apparently a necessary evil and outside of "Only the Young" I don't listen to them much". Love Pineda's version of OTY though).

I didn't like Eclipse because there wasn't anything that was catchy on the album. When I think of Journey I think of a band that puts out solid catchy songs, anthems if you will. There wasn't anything on Eclipse that caught me. When Journey rocked they did it with catchy songs. Songs like Separate Ways, Be Good To Yourself, Stone In Love, Dead Or Alive, Escape, Higher Place, Faith In the Heartland, even Never Walk Away, etc. The only thing that Eclipse catches is dust on the shelf.

jestor92 wrote:
I didn't like Eclipse because there wasn't anything that was catchy on the album. When I think of Journey I think of a band that puts out solid catchy songs, anthems if you will. There wasn't anything on Eclipse that caught me. When Journey rocked they did it with catchy songs. Songs like Separate Ways, Be Good To Yourself, Stone In Love, Dead Or Alive, Escape, Higher Place, Faith In the Heartland, even Never Walk Away, etc. The only thing that Eclipse catches is dust on the shelf.

You didn't find "Anything is Possible" or "She's a Mystery" catchy?

My 9 year old hasn't heard Anything is Possible in at least a year and routinely is humming it...

In addition to AIP or the other aforementioned Eclipse tracks, "Someone", has a HUGE hook/chorus. As Andrew said "pure Journey." Its also telling that Jestor mentions a bunch of random songs off mostly separate albums as examples of what Journey should sound like. BGTY and DSB and Higher Place are years, if not decades, apart. Why would u expect Eclipse to be a greatest hits album?

Back on topic about Neal's solo efforts, I think they suffer from a lack of Jon's baseline melodies. For example, "The Revelation" is one of my favorites off that album. And the preamble to Arnel's first US concert in Vegas (on the DVD) is masterful. They basically wrote that the afternoon of the gig in the dressing room. Jon lay down the synth, and Neal rehearsed a solo. I wish we were getting more offerings like it.

jestor92 wrote:
I didn't like Eclipse because there wasn't anything that was catchy on the album. When I think of Journey I think of a band that puts out solid catchy songs, anthems if you will. There wasn't anything on Eclipse that caught me. When Journey rocked they did it with catchy songs. Songs like Separate Ways, Be Good To Yourself, Stone In Love, Dead Or Alive, Escape, Higher Place, Faith In the Heartland, even Never Walk Away, etc. The only thing that Eclipse catches is dust on the shelf.

Music is subjective.... thank God or else we'd all be thinking Justin Beiber was Elvis.
"Someone" was super catchy and should've been a single. "Ritual" and "Human Feel" were catchy too, just not as much as "Someone". "Dead or Alive" catchy? Great tune, but I'd never call it "catchy". Like I said, "subjective".

Eclipse is my favorite Journey album since Frontiers.

I've had enough of the ballads for the most part. I can live with one or maybe two ballads on an album of theirs. But they should Rock overall. Lots of long and heavy solos from Neal is exactly what I do want from the band overall anymore.

Another Raised On Radio is NOT what I want from them.

I love Jonathan Cain's talent, and think that he's a good guy. But I'm sick of him pushing for more ballads and other light rock all of the time.

SO U clips can be heard at Andrews cd showcase:
http://www.melodicrock.com/showcase/nealschon-sou.html

It sounds like the Deen vocal tracks should have been saved for Journey, as I was afraid would be the case…and they likely were written before Eclipse was recorded or earlier.

In a recent interview, Neal said he brought Blades in to help with lyrics on SO U after he, Marco and Deen had recorded the music, which we’ve known for some time. However, he also said that a couple of tunes had been completely written by the two of them during some down time when they were both off the road and had a chance to get together to write. I would assume that those would likely be the tracks sung by Deen and the most Jrnyesque, as many of us questioned why Journey didn’t work with Blades more after the quality of the Arrival tracks on which he contributed.

If I recall, both The Calling and SO U were recorded immediately upon completing Eclipse. It seems that Neal may have wanted Jack to help with some new Journey tunes and perhaps Cain vetoed them? Wouldn’t the titles Love Finds a Way and Serenity have possibly fit the “theme” of Eclipse?

NoMoreTails wrote:SO U clips can be heard at Andrews cd showcase:
http://www.melodicrock.com/showcase/nealschon-sou.html

It sounds like the Deen vocal tracks should have been saved for Journey, as I was afraid would be the case…and they likely were written before Eclipse was recorded or earlier.

In a recent interview, Neal said he brought Blades in to help with lyrics on SO U after he, Marco and Deen had recorded the music, which we’ve known for some time. However, he also said that a couple of tunes had been completely written by the two of them during some down time when they were both off the road and had a chance to get together to write. I would assume that those would likely be the tracks sung by Deen and the most Jrnyesque, as many of us questioned why Journey didn’t work with Blades more after the quality of the Arrival tracks on which he contributed.

If I recall, both The Calling and SO U were recorded immediately upon completing Eclipse. It seems that Neal may have wanted Jack to help with some new Journey tunes and perhaps Cain vetoed them? Wouldn’t the titles Love Finds a Way and Serenity have possibly fit the “theme” of Eclipse?

Interesting theory. I think alot of the outside help for 'Arrival' was at Sony's urging. Since going independent, Jon may be possessive about his role as the band's primary songwriter. As good as 'Revelation' and 'Eclipse' both are, a Jack Blades co-write would have elevated them to classic status.

All So U tracks are new co-writes with Jack Blades.
The Deen songs are awesome.

PS. Eclipse rules!

Serenity sounds awesome.

Deen sounds great on the samples, and he is who I wanted to hear most, but the thing that has me most intrigued is which songs are Neal's? He is singing a little differently and sounds very much like Mendoza! I think So U might turn out pretty good.

Longer "So U" samples found here.

http://www.melodicrock.com/showcase/nealschon-sou.html

Meh... listened to a few of the samples, not much of interest so far. I like his last solo record, but this may be the first record of his that I pass on. I like the few songs Deen sings on FWIW...