Change 1997

With each successive album, Tinsley Ellis has moved further and further away from mainstream blues grooves and closer and closer to hard rock. While his guitar playing is as explosive as ever, it also remains unfocused, the end result being soloing that never reaches a musical climax, but is nonetheless played with an unrelenting energy that music fans who like their blues with rock muscles will appreciate. Tracks like "Diggin' My Own Grave," "One Sunny Day," "Soulful," "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)," and "I Walk Alone" sound like they could be on anybody's blues-rock or roots rock album, and even legendary producer Tom Dowd can't do much with Ellis' consistently flat and generally lifeless vocals.

Former Roomful of Blues saxophonist Greg Piccolo stretches his musical wings even further on this, his third solo outing since leaving the group in 1990. In addition to his brawny tenor sax wailings, Piccolo also plays lead guitar (in a crude, but effective style somewhat reminiscent of Roy Buchanan and Carlos Santana) and alto sax this time around, coaxing acid-jazz sounds out of the latter instrument. With his regular working combo Heavy Juice providing stellar support in a multiplicity of styles (Piccolo jumps from swing to bop to acid jazz to soul ballads and even a taste of rock'n'roll on this one) and 14 Karat Soul providing backup vocals on "Money" and the title track, Red Lights is Greg Piccolo's most musically ambitious album to date.

This two-CD set is that odd musical griffin: a live disc plus a studio disc. While the live material is rendered well, it's dispiriting that two of Yes' three live albums of the '90s rehash material adequately covered in Yessongs and Yesshows. While the appearance of Steve Howe's classical guitar on the lovely "Turn of the Century" is a pleasant surprise, the rest of the live album is nothing that you haven't heard before…

From the start (with their 1997 studio album) it was obvious that the band decided to keep alive the spirit of the 70s, with a relatively strong Yes, Camel and Marillion influence, but a unique touch that only Brazilian bands can provide, the album was well received in the States but became really accepted in Continental Europe and specially in Japan, where they became some sort of minor icons.
With the same formation plus two guests (Marco Aurêh - flute on "O Dom de Voar" and Fernando Sierpe - vocals on "Discover"), the band releases their second album called "The Dawn After the Storm" (1999), and this time they hit the nail right in the head. If their debut was solid, this time they surpassed the expectations and gave us one of the best Brazilian albums full of lush keyboards and fresh ideas…

THINK FLOYD pulls of a decent tribute to PINK FLOYD, and it's a nice listen for those who won't be bothered by band's unoriginality (they are a tribute band, get over it)…

It's quite difficult to find a young person who knows about the Scorpions. Even when their careers were peaking in the '80s, they were never widely recognized, existing always as more of an underground band. The lack of hit singles produced by the group is by no means a judgment of its talent, however, as Deadly Sting: The Mercury Years proves. Some may find the fact that Mercury made the compilation a double-disc set surprising – again due to the band's small following – but the album is far better than the single-disc collection Best of Rockers 'n' Ballads. Following chronologically from 1979 to 1993 (thus covering the years in which the band enjoyed its most success)…