Steve Lukather - Ever Changing Times

The first thing you will no doubt you will have noticed here is the score, which as it happens would be a record new low for Komodo Rock, you can't really get much lower than that now can you?So the question you are asking me is why? Why has the legendary Steve Lukather of Toto come up so badly? Is it an imposter? Did he decide to record an album of such depravity that the world may never accept him again? In this case no, so take a deep breath it's ok. What I've heard of this album is actually pretty damn good, very emotional, very mood driven, and had the potential to be a truly great album.

So what went wrong? Well that would be the dodgy Italian voice over that the label, Frontiers Records, have added over all bar two tracks on this album, supposedly to stop piracy and internet uploading. Will it stop that? Does anyone honestly believe it will? Regardless, this is not the way to do things, because as a reviewer I have to review what is put in front of me, what my ears hear, no what I want them to hear. What I am listening to here is an album that can best be described as perhaps the Mona Lisa after a 2 year old covered in chocolate has crawled all over it. Yes it might once have been a great painting, and yes you can still see that greatness, but really all you can see now is little chocolate hand prints.

Well there's no chocolate here, but what we have instead is a disembodied voice telling me what I already know, and destroying all the hard work Steve Lukather has put into this album. I'm all for protecting the rights of artists and labels, but this is not the way to do it, this is not a solution, this is a request to reviewers to ignore what their ears tell them and imagine what this album sounds like.

Oh, and to finish on a bright point the two tracks on here that are not voice overed, the albums title track and 'Never Ending Night' are superb, and I hope that one day I'll hear a version of this album that lives up to those two, without 2 year old chocolate hand prints all over it.