THE STEEL – The Evolution of Love (Album Review)

Italian Hard Rock Band Steel It!

Italy is known for its culture, its art, its history, its food, its wine, its breathtaking landscapes, and its music. But its hard rock?  Not so much.  Its heavy metal?  Hardly.  But it should be.  The Steel, straight out of Napoli, Italy, ain’t your grandpa Dominic’s Pavarotti.  This eclectic hard rock three-piece outfit is led by singer/bassist, Tiziano Favero and rounded out by guitarist, Marco Perroni, and Rino Musella on drums.  They recently changed their name from Wizard to The Steel and just finished their new full-length LP, The Evolution of Love.

The easiest bands to describe are the ones whose influences are obvious. That way, I can describe a band simply by comparing them to another band with whom readers may be more familiar.  I can remember reading a Hit Parader magazine article in 1988 that said a new band called Kingdom Come sounded like Led Zeppelin.  Based on that review alone, I ran out and bought Kingdom Come without ever hearing it.  Alas, The Steel’s sound isn’t so easy to describe because they pour so many different styles into a single album.  Sometimes, they rock.  Sometimes, they’re progressive.  Other times, they’re melodic metal.  Others still, they’re an instrumental soundscape.  But at all times, they’re really good.

True to form, The Evolution of Love is an album that plays like a great movie. At times, it’ll make you feel happy.  Other times it’ll make you feel sentimental.  But I suspect you come to Decibel Geek to find new bands that rock.  Rest assured, these guys will rock your ass off.  There’s so many different facets to this album, I’m not sure where to start, so I’ll just give you some highlights:

Track 1: “W379” – The album opens with a progressive instrumental track with a title that nobody on Earth (other than the band) can decipher. There’s people who just can’t relate to a song without words.  Thus, opening an album with an instrumental track carries a risk of alienating the listener right from the start.  So, these guys have balls for doing shit their own way.  And by the way, it’s a really good song.  The lead instrument in this song is the guitar.  The guitar doesn’t bury you under a hailstorm of notes, as it’s melodic,  thoughtful and inspiring…in the same way the musical score in every single Rocky movie is melodic and thoughtful and inspiring at that exact moment where Rocky realizes Adrian is right and that he’s been an asshole.  Again, not sure I would have opened the album with this, but I’m glad it’s on the album nonetheless.

Track 2 – “You Got The Feeling” is the album’s first rocker. Tiziano Favero can vary his voice from smooth to gravelly.  He brings the growl for this one.  The song also features a high octane guitar solo by Marco Perroni, with double right-handed tapping a la Randy Rhoads on the “Flying High Again” solo.

Track 4 – “The Five Land (Prelude)” is a great song. A short Led Zeppelin-esque acoustic daydream jingle. There’s few instruments on this song: 1) bright acoustic rhythm, 2) subtle electric lead guitar volume swells, and 3) electric guitar with slide, and 4) a faint voice from somewhere out in the ether singing “take me away…”  This song also reminds me of a track off of the Katmandu album called “Heart and Soul” (a lot of folks don’t know that between Fastway and Flogging Molly, Dave King was in a really cool band called Katmandu, which also featured former Krokus guitarist Mandy Meyer…and their self-titled album is one of my favorites of all time).

Track 5 – “Take Me Away” is a hard-hitting power rock track. But at this point, I’m confused.  The chorus to this song is the same melody and lyrics from the previous song, “The Five Land (Prelude)”.  So, you basically get the same song twice – once as a spacey, acoustic soundscape and then as a rocker.  Totally confusing, and yet, totally cool.  And anyway, this melody is so mesmerizing that the album is better for showcasing it twice.  For your viewing pleasure, the official music video appears below.

Track 7 is “Lonliness” and I wonder if these guys know how to spell the word “loneliness” and purposefully misspelled it here or if they actually don’t know how to spell it. On second thought, who cares?  This is my favorite song on the whole record.  It reminds me of all those old Richie Kotzen songs, for which he pulled out the old Wurlitzer piano.  So, if you’re into Richie Kotzen or Winery Dogs, this one’s for you.  Like I said, Tiziano Favero has more than one voice.  On this one, he brings his heartfelt, aching, yearning voice to the table and it makes you want to grab your girlfriend firmly by both ass cheeks and tell her you love her.

Give “The Evolution of Love” by The Steel a spin. You heard it here first on DecibelGeek.com!

BUY: The Evolution of Love

Facebook

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub_OGgRSg-s[/embedyt]