The idea behind a covers album featuring Michael Bolton’s classic AOR period has merit, so good on Frontiers for giving it a shot.
Written by: gdmonline
ARTIST: Various Artists
ALBUM: Steel Bars: A Rock Tribute To Michael Bolton
LABEL: Frontiers SRL
SERIAL: FRCD 1336
YEAR: 2023
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: International
LINEUP: Andrea Seveso – guitars * Saal Richmond – keyboards * Mitia Maccaferri – bass * Nicholas Papapicco – drums * Alessandro Del Vecchio – backing vocals
TRACK LISTING: 01 Everybody’s Crazy (Girish Pradhan) * 02 Fools Game (Steve Overland) * 03 How Can We Be Lovers (Dave Mikulskis) * 04 Steel Bars (Sochan Kikon) * 05 Wait On Love (Ana Nikolic & Nevena Brankovic) * 06 Can’t Turn It Off (Gui Oliver) * 07 Save Our Love (Santiago Ramonda) * 08 Gina (Robbie Lablanc) * 09 Call My Name (Stefan Nykvist) * 10 Don’t Tell Me It’s Over (Ronnie Romero) * 11 Desperate Heart (James Robledo)
RATING: 90/100
WEBLINKS: Frontiers Shop
Background
The idea behind a covers album featuring Michael Bolton’s classic AOR period has merit, so good on Frontiers for giving it a go. The label have given such ventures a shot in the past, Issa‘s’ Can’t Stop’ album from 2012 being one such example off the top of my head. There’s no doubt that Bolton has a range of excellent material to choose from, and long time fans will have perused the track listing thinking that at least it’s not a Michael Bolton Greatest Hits collection.
Frontiers have assembled an all Italian band, many of the players are unknown to me, except keyboardist Saal Richmond from the Turin based band In-Side who’s two excellent albums from 2017 and 2021 have been written up on the old GDM site (they’re in the queue to be imported to the new site soon). Musically, the band get the job done with a bit of guidance from producer Alessandro Del Vecchio.
The Songs
The material covered here is between 1983 and 1991. Mostly the song selection is to be expected, though personally I would have preferred more from the 1983 ‘Michael Bolton’ album and dropped the two ballads ‘Call My Name’ and ‘Desperate Heart’ which don’t really do a lot for me. I was very interested to hear the songs from the ‘Everybody’s Crazy’ album. Yes I know that we’re not looking for exact replicas on the vocal delivery but I’d give each song a pass mark anyway, because Bolton’s tenor range is one of the best going around and you need to be good to get close.
Highlights for me included ‘Wait On Love’ by the Serbian pairing of Ana Nikolic and Navena Brankovic. The delivery is quite soulful with a pop flavour. Steve Overland’s rendition of ‘Fools Game’ was good too if slightly different to what I was expecting. ‘Save Our Love’ featuring Storm Warning‘s Santiago Ramona needed a power performance simply because the song demanded it, and he did a great job. The version of’ Everybody’s Crazy’ from Indian/Sikkim vocalist Girish Pradhan was the pick for me. This guy has so much unbridled vocal power, and like the previous track, this classic song demands power.
In Summary
Frontiers decision for the album was to mix up the labels roster of singing talent between those that are well established and those that are relatively new. As a concept, it kinda worked, particularly around putting some of these newer names in the spotlight for future endeavors. Considering Michael Bolton has been off the scene for a number of years now, and dropped the AOR and melodic rock persona decades ago, at least long time fans of that long forgotten era have something to celebrate in 2023.
Video
Save Our Love
Wait On Love
