Album Review: Steve Lukather - Transition

Guitarist Steve Lukather has been a fairly regular visitor to our shores over the past 30 years or so, mostly with the band that put him on the international map – Toto – but also as part of G3, with Steve Vai and Joe Satriani. Not that he's up there in that sort of technically innovative league; coming from a slightly earlier generation, Lukather is much more commercially accessible as a player, opting for songs and melodies over the kind of lead-heavy pyrotechnics of his G3 colleagues.

That's not to suggest he's slouching, just that even on his solo albums, he's not exactly a million miles away from the vaguely prog pop-rock of his main musical vehicle. There's still plenty of soloing of course, but Lukather is as interested in the melodies he writes himself to sing. In that sense, Transition is more the kind of album that would sit comfortably next to 90125-era Yes. In fact there's a touch of the Wakemans in the opening track, Judgement Day. Essentially Lukather is a lyrical rather than frenetic soloist.

Unfortunately, to contemporary ears, it means that, for all the passion Lukather might imagine he's imbuing this seventh solo album with, it comes across as classic American mainstream radio rock – essentially Toto with a dash of '80s Jefferson Starship and the occasional glimmer of Eddie Van Halen. It has solid songwriting, impeccable playing – how could it not, with sidemen like drummers Chad Smith and Gregg Bissonette and the grand old man of session bass, Leland Sklar – and superb production. But it's never going to float the boat of a post-Nirvana generation let alone post-Sex Pistols, which is a shame really. Definitely one for the guitarists out there.