The new album was made available for purchase as a download on Amazon a few hours ago, right after midnight on the east coast of the United States.
I've been listening and relistening to it in the background. I need some time for music to sit with me before I form detailed lasting opinions onnall the songs, especially as I tend to be doing other things while listening.
What I can say is that "Someone Needed Me the Most" is my early favorite on the album song wise. It has some of that old Chicago power ballad love song type of feel, though just when it's clicking with harmonies that sound produced with 80s style engineering (Possibly with some looping), it sometimes goes back to what sounds like 70s style production and more basic two man harmony. I would have said just go all the way and make it like an 80s song (Hey, Bobby Kimball is guesting on part of it, after all!), or really the type of songs that were a presence on Chicago albums through 2007, all the way through, but this came very close to being a song that recaptured the magic even though it didn't take it to the wall. It's the closest thing to my favorite era's style and I'm loving it. I feel like it almost samples 3 seconds or so of "You're The Inspiration" at one point, but I'm not sure anything under 4 seconds counts as sampling.
I'm happy putting the song on playlists with my other favorite Chicago songs.
The album as a whole reminds me a bit of the Chicago VII or VIII through XI time period. It's not an exact match for it, but that's the closest analogy I've got. Kind of 70s soft rock with horns and little bit of jazz, Latin American, and world music accents here and there. There's not much of the hard rocking experimental guitar and other stuff that was on I-VI, and it doesn't embrace the 80s sound of XIV onward. One might even compare "Someone Needed Me Most" being present as call back to an era the band isn't focused on as similar to "If You Leave Me Now" on Chicago X existing as foreshadowing of an era that the band hadn't yet reached.
Though most of these songs qualify as soft rock, they also tend to have a beat, like a laid back salsa or jazz song. You can tap your foot to a lot of these, which makes them a little more engaging than just a rock band that doesn't rock very much.
Stuff like "Safer Harbors", "The Mermaid", and "For the Love" feel like they may grow into something with repeat listening. At this point, I'd say they have potential. Given a month or two, they'll either be favorite songs from the album or just the same as more average tunes on the album.
Songs do tend to melodically differentiate themselves from each other with different influences and rythms without lessening the feeling of cohesion as an album and a band. At least one songs had a lot of violin ("For the Love"), another has a flute ("House on the Hill").
The primary vocalists seem to be Robert Lamm and Neil Donnell, who both sound good. Would it be nice to have Peter Cetera there? Absolutely, but he hasn't put out a solo album for 20 years now, so even if somehow the massive issues he and the band have with each other were wiped away, he might be a barrier to making new albums, and I am all about the new albums. I've never even been to a Chicago concert, but I have all their studio rock albums (Skipped 3 of the 4 XMas albums and the big band style album). Put out more Chicago rock albums and I'll keep buying them.
This isn't going to go down as a top five album in Chicago history or anything, but it does still have that ineffable quality that makes Chicago Chicago. Anyone who likes all the Chicago albums they have to date and wants to like this one (and isn't hung up on needing to hear a particular voice, literally or creatively, who is no longer there) will like this one and feel like they made a good purchase. There's nothing in here that sounds bad to my ears, even if one could legitimately suggest that they should have gone in this direction or that direction on more songs.
Hopefully there will be more albums still to come. They still sound like a solid group of guys musically, even though it's mostly different guys from the beginning.
I've been listening and relistening to it in the background. I need some time for music to sit with me before I form detailed lasting opinions onnall the songs, especially as I tend to be doing other things while listening.
What I can say is that "Someone Needed Me the Most" is my early favorite on the album song wise. It has some of that old Chicago power ballad love song type of feel, though just when it's clicking with harmonies that sound produced with 80s style engineering (Possibly with some looping), it sometimes goes back to what sounds like 70s style production and more basic two man harmony. I would have said just go all the way and make it like an 80s song (Hey, Bobby Kimball is guesting on part of it, after all!), or really the type of songs that were a presence on Chicago albums through 2007, all the way through, but this came very close to being a song that recaptured the magic even though it didn't take it to the wall. It's the closest thing to my favorite era's style and I'm loving it. I feel like it almost samples 3 seconds or so of "You're The Inspiration" at one point, but I'm not sure anything under 4 seconds counts as sampling.
I'm happy putting the song on playlists with my other favorite Chicago songs.
The album as a whole reminds me a bit of the Chicago VII or VIII through XI time period. It's not an exact match for it, but that's the closest analogy I've got. Kind of 70s soft rock with horns and little bit of jazz, Latin American, and world music accents here and there. There's not much of the hard rocking experimental guitar and other stuff that was on I-VI, and it doesn't embrace the 80s sound of XIV onward. One might even compare "Someone Needed Me Most" being present as call back to an era the band isn't focused on as similar to "If You Leave Me Now" on Chicago X existing as foreshadowing of an era that the band hadn't yet reached.
Though most of these songs qualify as soft rock, they also tend to have a beat, like a laid back salsa or jazz song. You can tap your foot to a lot of these, which makes them a little more engaging than just a rock band that doesn't rock very much.
Stuff like "Safer Harbors", "The Mermaid", and "For the Love" feel like they may grow into something with repeat listening. At this point, I'd say they have potential. Given a month or two, they'll either be favorite songs from the album or just the same as more average tunes on the album.
Songs do tend to melodically differentiate themselves from each other with different influences and rythms without lessening the feeling of cohesion as an album and a band. At least one songs had a lot of violin ("For the Love"), another has a flute ("House on the Hill").
The primary vocalists seem to be Robert Lamm and Neil Donnell, who both sound good. Would it be nice to have Peter Cetera there? Absolutely, but he hasn't put out a solo album for 20 years now, so even if somehow the massive issues he and the band have with each other were wiped away, he might be a barrier to making new albums, and I am all about the new albums. I've never even been to a Chicago concert, but I have all their studio rock albums (Skipped 3 of the 4 XMas albums and the big band style album). Put out more Chicago rock albums and I'll keep buying them.
This isn't going to go down as a top five album in Chicago history or anything, but it does still have that ineffable quality that makes Chicago Chicago. Anyone who likes all the Chicago albums they have to date and wants to like this one (and isn't hung up on needing to hear a particular voice, literally or creatively, who is no longer there) will like this one and feel like they made a good purchase. There's nothing in here that sounds bad to my ears, even if one could legitimately suggest that they should have gone in this direction or that direction on more songs.
Hopefully there will be more albums still to come. They still sound like a solid group of guys musically, even though it's mostly different guys from the beginning.
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