Paul Shortino is probably a familiar name to anyone who grew up
\non a steady diet of metal in the mid-’80s. First coming to the
\nspotlight as the lead vocalist of Rough Cutt, he soon became known
\nas Kevin Dubrow’s replacement in Quiet Riot, taking over as the
\nband appeared to be on its last legs.<\/p>\n
Since then, Shortino has re-teamed with Rough Cutt, and has made
\na name for himself as a solo artist.
\nStand Or Fall<\/i>, his 1999 release, illustrates that Shortino
\nis someone who deserves to be given the chance to succeed or fail
\non his own terms, though his greatest success comes when he sings
\nnot metal, but the blues.<\/p>\n
The album’s title track is pure evidence of this, as Shortino
\noutdoes Gary Moore for pure soul as he sings a variation of the
\n12-bar blues. Combined with his backing band, the Rhythm Junkies
\n(whose membership is so varied it would take most of this review to
\nlist them all), Shortino plows through this, as well as a cover of
\nWillie Dixon’s “Same Thing” and makes these tracks believable.<\/p>\n
This isn’t to say that Shortino can’t or shouldn’t sing his own
\nvariation of hard rock. Tracks like “Take Me Into The Fire,” “I
\nKnow You Want Me” and “Honesty” all carry with them a power that
\nShortino has demonstrated on and off for the past 15 years. It
\nmight not be the kind of oomph that would carry someone to
\nsuperstardom, but it’s respectable enough that listeners should sit
\nup and take notice.<\/p>\n
If only
\nStand Or Fall<\/i> could carry that momentum throughout the
\nalbum. It’s not that tracks such as “Devil In My Heart” and “You
\nCan’t Lose” are bad; they’re just somewhat formulatic – and if
\nanyone would want to move away from sounding like they’re following
\na formula, it would be someone like Shortino who survived the hard
\nrock\/metal meltdown of the late ’80s\/early ’90s.<\/p>\n
The closing track, “Broke n’ Busted,” seems to capture Shortino
\nat his essence: a singer with the heart of a bluesman and the vocal
\ngrit of someone who’s been slugging it out in the minor leagues for
\nfar too long. It’s a nice touch, and quite fitting to end the album
\non.<\/p>\n
\nStand Or Fall<\/i> might not break Shortino back into the common
\nground of hard rock fans today, but down the road, when he does
\nmake that glorious comeback (and I don’t doubt he’ll do it), people
\nwill come back to this album and take note of it, flaws and all…
\nand wonder why they didn’t notice Shortino back then.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25745,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6524],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-36951","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-paul-shortino","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36951"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36951"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}