Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Even the hardest of working souls need to feel the warmth on their face and the pleasure of company, the friends that tell them they have made a difference to the world, the ones that smile without fear when the recipient of the compliment declares with open heart and mind, “I Found The Sun Again“.
We all have our own measure of what may constitute hard work, a nurse who gives their all and then is mentally broken each day by the suffering they have witnessed but still manages to come home and give even more to those around them, to comfort a friend in need or to stay a while with the lonely and the dispossessed will always be in need of the sun, a harassed single mother doing her best to keep her family afloat on the meagre pittance afforded her by government, by society, this is hard work, this is the moment when the sun needs to shine once more on those left behind.
People mistakenly equate obscene fortune with the act of hard work, pointing out a billionaire and saying to their offspring, that if you work hard like them then perhaps too you will be rewarded. It is of course the stuff of nonsense, hard work and reward is what you bring to the world, the pleasure, the ability to listen, to perhaps entertain, sure you might be monetary rewarded for your skill, your deftness of mind, but to truly bask in the sun with ease of conscious is to have cared in whatever way you can about society, about another’s soul.
To be an artist is to be arguably to be tortured spiritually, the release comes from the search for the celestial and the passion to find comfort in what you undertake, and for Steve Lukather, a meticulous soul to whom music has not just been a lifeline for others to hold, but who has entertained with clarity and a finger on the pulse on the public imagination, that release comes in the form of conceivably one of his most emotionally bathed recordings of his long and stack filled career.
I Found The Sun Again is not reserved, it is not filled with apparent anger or drastic action, instead it is beautiful, mellow, dramatically pleasurable and one to which the listener will no doubt revel in because they hear a soul at peace with itself, the time in the sun coming along at the right time to shed light and warmth on a selection of songs that leaves the senses unburdened by the hideous and hateful drama that others take solace in.
Across moments such as the opener Along For The Ride, the covers of Traffic’s The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys, Joe Walsh’s Welcome To The Club, Robin Trower’s Bridge Of Sighs and the album title track of I Found The Sun Again, Steve Lukather, alongside Greg Bissonette, Jeff Babko, Jorgen Carlsson, John Pierce, David Paich and Joseph Williams, combine to inspire, to advocate the embracing of love and respect required to see society function, but also the sense of having enjoyed the live experience in which the album was cut.
A pleasure to feel someone smile, the honour of satisfaction granted to a soul who has found the sun and the beating heart of the cosmos in their mind.
Steve Lukather releases I Found The Sun Again on February 26th via The Players Club/Mascot Label Group.
Ian D. Hall