REVOLUTION SAINTS: "Rise"

Rating: RRR
Label: Frontiers 2020
Review by: Urban "Wally" Wallstrom

"Rise", the third studio album by the Revolution Saints. Production overseen by in-house Frontiers man, Alessandro Del Vecchio, the recording process took place in Milan and in Doug and Jack's own studios in California and Seattle. Songwriting was also mostly handled by Del Vecchio, with contributions from Aldrich and Blades. The classy ballad "Eyes Of A Child" was penned by Jack Blades and Tommy Shaw and it's clearly done by the Damn Yankees. It could just as easily have been Cat Stevens or Harry Chapin though. Think Cats In The Cradle rather than Cat Scratch Fever.

Revolution Saints? Featuring the convicted felony and overall wife/woman beater Deen Castronovo (The Dead Daisies, ex-Journey, Bad English) on lead vocals and drums, they should rename themselves as Sinners. Not the best of start? Well. Stop being a Goddamn hypocrite or worse and kindly recall how you reacted when you first heard about the BLACK rapper, the beating of Rhianna or any other woman for that matter. Castronovo is the White, Pink N Fluffy, AOR rocker. Surely he can't be as bad as the Gangsta? Look. He's been convicted on several cases of domestic violence. Case closed. Or maybe they had it coming? I believe they throw him out of Journey because of this? Jack Blades (Night Ranger) and Doug Aldrich (Whitesnake, Burning Rain) have no problem working with the proper skin-basher though.

The overall songwriting end up in the 'not too shabby' category where it's difficult to be neither upset or pleased. The idea behind "Rise" was clearly that the band would record something the goes down easily in a fight pretty much like the female victims of Deen. It's funny how these sort of people never end up in fights with any males?? Yeah, right. It's sort of like watered down Journey, kind of like RTZ and dut-dut AOR and it's up to you to decide if you fancy another platter with the same basic pattern and AOR ideas. "Million Miles" and "Win Or Lose", the real highlights of the album and the songs that any Journey-esque songwriter should be darn proud of.