Many of you may know Jeff Scott Solo from his stint with Yngwie Malmsteen, during which the talented singer appeared on “Rising Force”, “Marching Out” and “Inspiration”. Others possibly know him from Talisman, who had a small hit with the metal-flavoured cover of Madonna’s “Frozen” and others from his brief liaison with Journey.

Now if you’re waiting to hear such examples of  power metal or hard rock on his latest released entitled “Beautiful Mess”, then you’re going to be disappointed. On this album Jeff decided to express his love for pop funk. Not so suprising if you consider that he sang with disco-funk cover band, Boogie Knights for a number of years. However the shock for those who they knew Jeff through his performances with Yngwie Malmsteen or Axel Rudi Pell, can be great. Especially when they hear the albums opening track, “21st Century” and then realise that that was the heaviest the album gets, with a riff that could probably have been written by Tom Morello and then given to Extreme to turn into a song. Since we’re talking about Tom Morello that particular track could very well feature Chris Cornell on lead vocals and we’d be non the wiser. Further on down the album however, we move into much more pop rock territory, with the tracks reminiscent of artists such as Seal, on “Cry Me A River”, or Lenny Kravitz, on “Mountain”. The peak of this are the R'n'B brushstrokes on “Hey” with Jeff trying to become Craig David.

On the whole this album sounds confused. Where you get songs that start off funky by the time you reach the first chorus all of the sudden the distorted guitars make their appearance and it all becomes a weird mix of funk, pop, R'n'B and rock. It is not that the songs are badly written or that Jeff’s performances aren’t up to standards, it’s simply that to this reviewer it sounds as if Jeff Scott Soto decided to mix his two favourite “foods”. And as much as I like fusion cuisine mixing barbecue sauce with cheesecake is a bit too much…