Neal Schon - Universe.    6/10.

Believe it or not I do actually like Neal Schon, I simply don't care for this album, I have played this constantly over the last week , and although it is well played and it has a rather expensive feel to it,  produced by Michael Narada Walden it doesn't really have much life in it, is it well played? well yes it is, but I feel that he doesn't play too his strengths, the album has 15 tracks 6 covers and 9 originals and runs for over 70 minutes, no matter how many times I have played it I have yet too come across a favourite track, I can usually find at least one, but this time to no avail!

I'm not a Hendrix fan so I tend to zone out when people play his songs, I get why he  is loved but his songs are best played by him, you are not going to improve on the original, just saying. the Eye of God has a nice Arabian feel running through it but it doesn't actually say anything, the whole album as a whole kind of meanders, was that the intention, I hope not,  as I have said I like him as a guitar player but he works better with others, from Sammy Hagar, Jan Hammer (Untold Passion a masterpiece) Hardline, Bad English, even with Journey but this I could kind of leave did I enjoy it? well kind of, but it had as much passion as a Yngwie Malmsteen song, kind of soulless and hangs around when it should have just left us already!

Its a nice album, but its an album that you could play in the background quite easily and it probably wouldn't offend too many people, Guitar albums should grab us by the lapels and give us a bloody good shake. i yawned all the way through the Journey, which is sad as its one of my faves! its simply not a great album and I'm not going to score something higher simply because he has played on some great albums, this isn't one of them. This has all been said before, if I'm going to compare it too any other guitar album that was recently, I would go with Joe Satriani , now that had a thread of humanity flowing through it that this kind of lacks, will I stop buying Neal Schon albums, I don't think so, but I think I would go to Spotify or some other listening platform before paying cash for a hard copy.

so there's the first one, I was really looking forward to it, but if I am honest I was a tad disappointed, I get a number of albums each week and then the names go into the bag and the album gets chose randomly the five albums for this week were:

Neal Schon - Universe

Soto - Revision

Volbeat - Hokus Bonus

Brian May - On my way up (Compilation)

Merryweather Stark - Rock Solid.

lets see what the new week brings!

Until the next time...… Toodles!