New JSS Review & Interview in ALL ACCESS MAGAZINE!

Great interview & review in All Access Magazine.

Interview by The Atomic Chaser and The Rocker
http://www.allaccessmagazine.com/vol7/issue05/jeff_scott_soto.html

Awesome Review by The Atomic Chaser
http://allaccessmagazine.com/vol7/issue05/jeff_scott_soto_review.html

Great interview, thanks for the link Pam!

Another review by a hungarian author from RockUnited.com


JSS: "Beautiful Mess" 10
Frontiers 2009
Review by Endre 'Bandi' Hübner
18 February 2009

Let me get this straight: I'm positively biased when it comes to Jeff Scott Soto's (or JSS's, as he prefers to ne known these days) work and if he ever decided to sing the phone book, I'd still be interested. With that said we might as well take a closer look at his new effort. I guess the title is more than fitting in case Jeff wanted to emphasize that the album is a huge melting pot of various influences but most importantly those of funky, hard rock, and some blues. The first may be the problem for the "average" rock fan but personally I don't mind it at all as he does justice to funky with an unbelievable ease and smoothness with regards to vocal performance.

Fans of his earlier albums will not be disappointed either as the album starts of with "21st Century" just where "Lost in the Translation" left off. "Cry Me a River" is another cool rocker and both opening tracks have a really cool vibe and a groove to get to your bones. That's the blessing effect of Jeff's funky interest and it really gives a special spice to this album. It is to taste throughout the entire album yet it does not get too much, at least not for my taste. "Mountain" or "Bring It Home" may be a bit too much for the majority as those are pure old school funky stuff but haunting ballads like "Gin & Tonic Sky" or "Eye" and midtempo rockers like "Wherever You Wanna Go" or "Hey" will please those more into straightforward melodic rock.

Most of the instruments were handled by Paulo Mendoca who did a stunning job both as musician and as producer. Nothing's really overplayed here, solos are tasty, the arrangements are just very well-planned, lots of acoustic guitars spice up the slow and midtempo tunes and the backing vocals are as good as ever. To be honest at first I automatically gave the album 9 points as I normally do not hand out perfect 10s ever so often, then I took another look and tried to find any reasons for the deduction but taking a second look at musicianship, vocal performance, songwriting, and production I found no flaws, so there you go, I took a deep sigh and yours truly went for the 10. All you have to do is to go for the album[img]