First things first, confusingly, this album has nothing whatsoever to do with the legendary British band of the same name, which seems a little less than helpful – however, I digress. MöTT is the nickname of multi-instrumentalist called Martin Epp who, given his musical versatility, you might logically expect to provide pretty much everything on this album; but again, he surprises by taking a fairly “backseat” role, choosing to only play bass guitar allowing his various musical guests to show what they can do.
Speaking of said guests, he has surrounded himself with a fairly stellar cast, including Jeff Scott Soto, Lee Small, Derek Sherinian, Billy Sheehan, Phil X, Matt Starr, Jason Buhr, Jimmy Burkard, Dave Moreno, Eric Gales, Tony Franklin, Bruce Dickinson (not that one!), George Lynch, Jimmy Bell and Kenny Aronoff. It truly does say something that so many “names” have put their name and talents to this project, and MöTT himself must be justifiably proud of what he has achieved.
Being a “project”, MöTT has effectively been able to say, “no rules, no limits”, and to produce an extremely eclectic album – and it really is that. It’s not perfect, some songs really shine, others are less special, but there are genuinely no “clunkers” either, this is a quality album. What should you expect then? It’s kind of old-school, taking musical elements from the early seventies, through to much more modern Rock, but it does work despite those variations.
There are some real highlights, you really can’t go wrong when JSS sings on half your album, and Small sings on others. However, perhaps the biggest surprises are the title track, and ’Fallin’, which are the best Dave Lee Roth era Van Halen songs that the band never wrote – it is quite extraordinary. Soto really goes “full Roth” vocally on the title track, while Phil X, Billy Sheehan & Matt Starr faithfully recreate the sound of truly vintage Van Halen. The latter features Buhr on vocals, who again is stunningly close to DLR at his best.
‘Someone’ and ‘Angèle’ are both high points, again featuring JSS on Vocals, the latter being particularly wistful. ‘Drift Away’ impresses with its laconic bluesy beauty. While ‘Sweet Baby Grace’ is almost Psychedelic in feel. This is therefore an album that seemingly offers something for everyone, and I recommend it to you wholeheartedly.
Chris O’Conner
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