Album Review: Jeff Scott Soto - Complicated

Complicated is a solid word to use to describe Jeff Scott Soto's career, since he has been on so many albums it's difficult to keep them all straight, and to remember which bits are the ones you liked. In recent years, his albums with W.E.T. have been the highlights, with his solo albums sitting in the middle, and Sons Of Apollo's two albums being the most disappointing. What strikes me as being the oddest thing, however, is that his voice sounds completely different depending on who wrote the songs and engineered the recordings.

This album sees him teamed up with the Frontiers melodic rock factory, which as a sentence is enough to suffice as an entire review. Their songwriting is so ubiquitous this album sounds just like so many others, with Soto's voice interchanged for any of the other singers who will get similar records this year. What then strikes me rather immediately is that Soto doesn't sound as good on this record as he does with W.E.T., which seems to be a bit of a pattern now. I can't tell if it's a slight bit of distortion on the recording, or if Soto is being pushed to sing harder than his voice naturally fits, but the clarity and sheen for melodic rock is a bit missing.

With the album feeling so familiar, the charisma of the vocals is the main selling point. These songs are all melodic, to be sure, but they seldom hook me in or feel like they are going to be memorable. In fact, often everything is pushed loud enough that it feels like the performers are trying to convince themselves that if they just put a bit more 'oomph' into the recording, the songs are going to be better. They oversell at times.

It's disappointing to be saying this, because Soto is a talented singer, and I do like what his voice is capable of. His work with W.E.T. is fantastic, and the duet he took part in with Black Rose Maze was one of my favorite songs in 2020. If he's given the right songs, and produced the right way, he can absolutely be the voice of an amazing record. That's not what this one is. This is another album of perfectly find melodic rock I can't say I'm really excited about. There are so many of them, and they all fill the same space, you know the drill by now. This is a nice way to spend a few minutes, and there are three or four songs you might want to come back to, but this album will soon be replaced in your thoughts with the next similar one.

There's nothing about this album that turns me off, but there's also nothing about it that would make me put it on instead of one of the W.E.T. albums. They fill the same niche, and one has that 'it' factor the other doesn't, it almost makes me wonder why a solo album like this is being released if it isn't doing something new. It's more of the same, and that's entirely the problem.