Revolution Saints have always boasted an impressive line-up ever since the act’s inception back in 2014. The first constellation of the group consisted of Doug Aldrich on guitar (Whitesnake, DIO, Dead Daisies), Jack Blades on bass (Night Ranger), and the inimitable Deen Castronovo on drums (Journey, Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler, Dead Daisies). Two years ago things changed and in came the brilliant Joel Hoekstra (Whitesnake) and Jeff Pilson (Foreigner, DIO) – replacing Aldrich and Blades respectively.
What is essentially a project shaped and spearheaded by the label (Frontiers Records) and a creative outlet for various talented songwriters such as Michael Palace, Pete Alpenborg, and Alessandro Del Vecchio has churned out four albums so far – the fourth of which is titled Against the Winds and the second instalment to feature Castronovo, Pilson, and Hoekstra.
Although neither of their first two outputs were particularly impressive nor memorable, the Eagle Flight opus from last year generated some proper thrills from the perspective of this scribe, and the record contained an abundance of glorious melodies and infectious hooks while also sounding driven and energetic.
Everything on this brand-new disc looks and sounds fantastic in terms of its overall presentation and production values, and the Castronovo/Hoekstra/Pilson combo is a formidable one that can hardly be said to lack pedigree.
The frustrating thing is that Against the Winds is rather uneven and oftentimes loses its momentum, and it rarely manages to conjure up an atmosphere of excitement. Even though it oozes class and professionalism that indefinable sense of band chemistry and feeling is completely absent. It comes across as too stiff and sterile in many areas, and more dynamics as well as an organic aura would have done wonders for the output. Considering the nature of the project and that everyone involved most likely recorded their parts separately in different studios, its shortcomings are not really that surprising.
There are several noteworthy ideas and lots of juicy parts to sink your melodic rock/AOR-loving teeth into throughout, most notably the emotive ‘Show Me Your Light’, the epic ‘Divine Wings’, and the riff-tastic ‘Save All That Remains,’ and the album is nothing if not musically cohesive and immaculately performed from a technical perspective, but it lacks charisma and identity and by extension longevity and staying power. Castronovo’s voice is consistently phenomenal though.
Jeff Pilson was in Dokken not Dio.