SOTO – Divak (2016)

SOTO, the band led by awesome vocalist Jeff Scott Soto, is releasing tomorrow April 1st the second album “Divak” (pronounced “dee-vock”) which comes shortly after their debut release mere 15 months later, partly due to Jeff Scott Soto’s insistence on continuing to create and build a true brand for his new venture.

Once again, the new album is produced by Jeff Scott Soto and drummer Edu Cominato, and mixed by long time JSS engineer/associate John Ellis. But this time Soto has eschewed the trappings of A-list guests, so “Divak” features exclusively his band, and rightly so.
Cominato, BJ, David Z and Salan are a tightly knit unit capable of real musical fireworks. They have also contributed the lion’s share of the writing.

Jeff Scott Soto’s music is always grounded in melody, so “Divak” merely stretches this approach started a year ago and further establishing his latest band concept. Fans will detect echoes of earlier work and should revel in pieces like the anthemic ‘Weight Of The World’ and ‘Unblame’.
The first single ‘Freak Show’ is, typically, a riff-fest and – as with the previous album – has an underpinning heavy rhythm but arguably accessible, whilst ‘Paranoia’, the gut churning ‘Forgotten’ and ‘SuckerPunch’ continue the wonderful riffage and, naturally, topped with stellar vocal delivery.

The debut album featured a couple of standout in the form of mid-tempo and even featured proggy elements. On “Divak” the band have played fairly safe, without any great stylistic diversion save perhaps for the acoustic premise of ‘Misfired’ although still grounded in metallic hard rock.
It’s pretty much heavy riffage all the way, only broken by a superb piece like ‘In My Darkest Hour’, the album’s one extended ballad but – damn – it’s a killer.

If the first SOTO album was a superb metallic / hard rock beast, just wait to listen this new one. “Divak” tops the previous one and is even more consistent. Jeff demonstrates his ability to merge different musical sounds and textures on this disc and build on what he started with the first SOTO disc.
Tremendous songs, top class vocals, chugging guitars, groovy rhythm section and a cool, subtle keyboard lines that add a layered effect to the tracks sound, all this is what you’ll find in Soto’s “Divak”.
KILLERRR

01 – Divak (Intro)
02 – Weight of the World
03 – FreakShow
04 – Paranoia
05 – Unblame
06 – Cyber Masquerade
07 – In My Darkest Hour
08 – Forgotten
09 – SuckerPunch
10 – Time
11 – Misfired
12 – Fall from Grace
13 – Awakened

Jeff Scott Soto – vocals
Edu Cominato – drums
Jorge Salan – guitars
David Z – bass
BJ – keyboards, guitars

PRE ORDER:
www.amazon.de/DIVAK-SOTO/dp/B01AH12ENW
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