BRETT WALKER - Straight Jacket Vacation (2013)

[Nightrain]

No proper topic for this album except the RIP one and old BW thread so here we are

 

 

• Audio CD (16 Sep 2013)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: AOR Heaven
• ASIN: B00DU3XD6M

1. Reaching For The Stars
2. What About You
3. Better Than Goodbye
4. Streetlights Burning
5. I'll Bet It Hurts
6. More Than I
7. Good Enough
8. Waiting For Love
9. I'm Gonna Fly
10. So Happy I'm Cryin
11. Unlucky At Love
12. Someday I'm Gonna Be Famous

MUSICIANS:
Brett Walker (vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards)
Timothy Drury (keyboards)
Michael Cox (keyboards)
Matt MacKelvie (backing vocals)
Todd Herfindal (guitar)
Rich McCulley (guitar)
Mark Camp (bass)
Tommy Rickard (drums)
Steven Walker (drums)
Pat Leon (drums)
Mugs Cain (drums)

[Nightrain]

What I found here is pretty good album, but not great as half of this are maybe worth of 8 and above, but the rest of them are not. Great gems here are 'Reaching For The Stars' - a very nice opener, 'What About You' is also a great acoustic rock kinda stuff, 'Better Than Goodbye' is a beautiful midtempo song and that makes a solid three consecutive great tracks, but sadly I found the next four tracks a bit boring, not bad but well it's just quite average, perhaps around 6.75 to 7.25 materials.

 

Brett is picking up old Alias stuff that he wrote, 'Waiting For Love', which I always think that's underrated and much better than their overplayed hit, 'More Than Words Can Say'. I honestly prefer ALIAS version but Brett did make a fine different style here and I also love it. In fact I gave it a 9, which is the best track here. Too bad, the song after that, 'I'm Gonna Fly', is on the extreme side and lowest scoring track of this album. The tenth track, 'So Happy I'm Crying', is the last great song here, a nice soothing westcoast-ish stuff, and the last two tracks are quite decent.

 

Production and musicianship deserved at least 8/10 but with half of this album are somewhat passable or make a good background music, I must say replay value perhaps fall around 7 or 7.25. In one word, I say it's a good album, perhaps better if more better tracks included, but maybe a satisfying result for AOR or Brett's fans.

 

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