VARIOUS ARTISTS - Beyond Inspiration (A Tribute To Uli Jon Roth)

14 songs
65:20 minutes
/
Lion

Labelpage

Tribute albums are always controversial subjects: some people just love to see what other artists make of the blueprints delivered by their idols, other people are horrified by the sacrilege, and if you are not even into the artist the tribute is about, it's plainly uninteresting and hard to judge.

This Uli Jon Roth tribute has been carefully planned by Lars Eric Mattsson, and features many of the artists playing in bands signed by the Finnish guitar record label Lion Music. What makes this tribute different from other tributes is the fact that there are no real band versions, but rather guitar players helped out with a backing band, which can on the hand make for interesting constellations, but on the other hand doesn't have the interest you would get from a real band cover version.

I personally only recognized Roth's classic song Electric Sun, but there is also at least one ancient Scorpions song (Pictured Life) interpreted by Neal Grusky. All in all, I can't do much with this album, but Mattsson says this is not about being better than UJR (I guess that would be a sacrilege), but it's about saying thank you to their biggest inspiration. In that way, I guess people admiring UJR will find the results on this compilation interesting, all other people will have the same reaction of indifference like me.

No rating, for fairness' sake, but here's a list of the participating musicians: Ian Haugland (Europe), Gerald Kloos (Empire, Condition Red), Lance King (Mattsson, Empire, Balance Of Power), Lars Eric Mattsson, Cyril Achard (Taboo Voodoo), James Byrd, Rolf Munkes (Empire), Torben Enevoldsen (Section A), Chris Steberl (Project Alcazar), Joop Wolters (Arabesque), Tony Hernando, Dushan Petrossi (Iron Mask), Thorbjörn Englund (Winterlong, Star Queen), Neal Grusky (Takara), Eric Sands (Truth Of Fiction), Paul Nelson, Alex Masi, William Stravato, Ella Grussner (Condition Red), Weine Johansson (Baltimoore), Torgny Stjärnfelt (Condition Red), Alf Wemmerlind (Mister Kite), Michael James Flatters (Byrd, Takara).