Russell Allen's Atomic Soul

At least this release served to confirm one thing most of us had been already guessing for long, judging by all the different projects Russell Allen had already been involved in: the man is never as good as when he’s singing for Symphony X. A good point though, he seems that time far more involved in the recording that he’s been on most of the others, but the contrary would have been surprising as, after all, this is his first genuine solo album and not another collaboration which primary aim is to bring back a few more crumbs into his wallet (not to throw any stone at him, he too has to eat and, given his corpulence, he must probably eat a lot).

It may look surprising at first glance but it’s a smoother, tender side of Sir Russell which is offered here, contrasting with the image most of us must have got of him so far. The big, tall bear from New Jersey is hiding a heart of gold, you know. And he doesn’t hesitate to go back to 70’s hard-rock to prove it - AC/DC or Deep Purple. The vast majority of this album is hard-rock, in fact. There shouldn’t be anything wrong with it, after all AC/DC and Deep Purple were both great bands, but this isn’t what Allen had accustomed us to. Granted, knowing the number of prog rock recordings he’d been participating in, everyone must have guessed for long he isn’t likely to have a grip against this kind of music. But said recordings were still progressive hard-rock, precisely, and now that he’s heading towards pure hard-rock things begin to really clash. A typical example, just look at these lyrics, from Saucey Jack:

I need a kick in the ass, need a blast
I want a fast girl or two – Oh yes I do
Oh Lord, dirty livin' gonna kill me
But oh I love it so
Ya know I do

Of course those are totally idiotic, but that’s not the point. Saucey Jack is a goofy hard-rock tune, and a pretty good one in its genre, so it’s exactly the kind of lyrics you’re expecting to hear, they couldn’t be more fitting. But they’re no longer fitting when they’re put in the mouth of RUSSELL ALLEN. He just doesn’t manage to find the right tune, the right mood to sing such parts. The way he fills this song, alongside the most rockish ones of the album (Loosin’ You, Atomic Soul) with numerous “Oh, Yeah!” “Alright!” “Ah!” or other “Yeah I do!”, so many of all those it becomes ridiculous, only underlines his evident discomfort. While hard-rock should sound casual and spontaneous, here it primarily sounds forced.

The sound isn’t really helping either. The production is pretty clean, and that’s precisely the rub. I’ve mentioned some parts sounding like AC/DC, take for instance the last thirty seconds of the opener Blackout – a typical AC/DC ending, or Seasons of Insanity; but AC/DC had a rather fat, dirty sound which most of time saved the otherwise sheer simplicity of their compositions. Russell Allen’s hard-rock on the other hand is all neat and tidy, and while this album obviously wasn’t meant to be intellectual, the man doesn’t manage to hide the fact he’s become through years, consciously or not, an intellectual, and those realms have become more or less closed to him. All of these eleven tracks have obviously been thought and elaborated for months; AC/DC surely didn’t take more than a few hours to lay the foundations of their songs.

No wonder then one of the best songs here is the longest one, We Will Fly, a progressive track with a strong ballad-ish feeling featuring indeed Michael Pinnella himself on piano, what a surprise. At least here Russell isn’t playing to what he’s not. The other ballad of the album though, The Distance, is so mellow it’s easily the worst track, only confirming the man is definitely not at ease with totally quiet tunes. Further, a song like Gaia exhibits synthetic orchestrations which weren’t necessary and are again clashing with the general hard-rock vibe of the rest of the album, an album where one is eventually in pain finding any really hooking track, even if my favourite would probably be the title track with a strong Deep Purple influence in its keyboard/organ line – the whole song indeed sounds a bit too much like a rip-off of Highway Star.

Needless to say for a so-called atomic soul (whatever this might be, an “atomic soul”...), something far more powerful could have been expected. That one is most likely fed with impoverished uranium.

Highlights: Seasons of Insanity, We Will Fly, Atomic Soul