TALISMAN – Cats And Dogs (2016 reissue)
Another album from the Frontiers Music reissue series of some of their early releases now deleted is the Jeff Scott Soto fronted TALISMAN album “Cats and Dogs“, one of their strongest efforts.
Album opener ‘Skin On Skin’ is the picture perfect from the characteristic of the entire album, since the song contains a great guitar riff followed closely by Marcel Jacob’s deep bass lines and Soto’s soaring vocals, changing pace when the chorus kicks in. Like all the material here, it’s focused on the melodies in favor of the technical playing.
The album uses the first 3 songs – followers ‘Break It Down’ and ‘In Make Believe’, the more melodic of the bunch – to warm up the listener, and the rest of the CD is pure Melodic Hard Rock heaven.
‘Love Will Come Again’ has a mellow verse, but is followed by an amazing heavier hookline for the chorus. Fredrik Åkesson plays an ingenious outro solo, perhaps the best among his already good ones.
‘Wherever, Whenever, Whatever’ is splashing melodic right from the intro, where the guitar plays the melody line. The song is consistent with its underlying emotion and the join in the singing.
Then there’s some really groovy hard rockers like ‘Friends To Stranger’ (a highlight), while Jacob’s bass is a bit funky on ‘Trapped’ giving the song power and delicious subharmonics.
‘Sorry’ is another winner and an album highlight, and ‘Lost In The Wasteland’ delivers some of the best Talisman arrangements ever. ‘Outta My Way’ has a monster bass intro from Marcel and an amazing bass / guitar duel but never trapped in the technical virtuosity. Talisman’s songs always have the melody in focus and then spice it with some musical swagger.
“Cats & Dogs” is one of my favorite Talisman / Jeff Scott Soto albums, plenty of great melodic hard rock tunes and hooky choruses. The songs flow seamless into each other, creating a really easy listening album while maintaining all the hard rocking elements required from a Talisman album.
Sharp bass playing, lots of melodious guitar solos, Jeff Scott Soto at his raspy best and solid production.
Highly Recommended
01 – Skin On Skin
02 – Break It Down
03 – In Make Believe
04 – Love Will Come Again
05 – Outta My Way
06 – Friends To Stranger
07 – Sorry
08 – Trapped
09 – M.O.M.
10 – Wherever, Whenever, Whatever
11 – Lost In The Wasteland
12 – Hell In Paradise
Jeff Scott Soto: lead & backing vocals
Frederik Akesson: guitars
Marcel Jacob: bass
Jamie Borger: drums
BUY
www.amazon.co.uk/Cats-Dogs-Talisman/dp/B01GHI5OLI
