Review: Fanalo - Fanalo - ROCKPOSER DOT COM

Review: Fanalo – Fanalo

Klonosphere Records (February 28^th, 2025)

Reviewer: Jason Hopper

For those like me who are not familiar, a gentleman named Stephane Alaux goes by the name Fanalo and is a French artist/guitar player who has been involved in the Prog metal Band “Plug-in” and toured with the US guitarist Bumblefoot. I know nothing of his music, but when I heard that he would be working with the legend that is Jeff Scott Soto, I just had to see what this release had in store for me. After one play through, what stood out most was the variety of tunes. There’s a mix of instrumentals, progressive, hard rock, and metal tracks, with some phenomenal production. There’s something for everyone here.

Full disclosure – I’ve been a huge Jeff Scott Soto fan for nearly 30 years. He’s one of my favorite artists and I have collected nearly everything he has sang on. While I don’t love all the music he has released over the years, being that he has sung on about 4,000 songs, I have loved about 3,000 of them. So when the opportunity arises to review a new album that features his vocals, I will always jump at the opportunity to check it out. To be clear, Jeff only sings on three tracks, but that’s more than enough for me to want to check it out.

We’ll begin by talking about those tracks he’s featured on as they are some of my favorites. ‘New Found World’ is Jeff at his best. While I love all three, it’s clear why this was released as the first single. It’s a commercial, straightforward rock track and a highlight of the album. Sounding like a mix of Jeff’s band Talisman and his newer solo stuff, it’s what we expect and love from Jeff, high-energy melodicism.

Running a close second is recent single ‘Hate 4 Sale’. Once again, you have a mix of older and newer sounds from Jeff. It has a heavy bass presence similar to Sons of Apollo mixed with an old school hard rock melody cribbed from his Talisman days.

‘Die To Live’ has a slower but thicker sound with a dual keyboard wall of sound approach in the bridge and chorus. It could be considered a moody type of track, but Jeff’s multi-harmonized approach lifts the song from its doldrums and creates a nice balance between his vocals and the melody.

Of the songs that did not feature Jeff, Final track ‘Rise’ was a favorite. It has a heavy Extreme influence, so much so that if you told me that it was a lost Extreme track, I would believe you. To clarify, this is not a cover of the Extreme track with the same name, but sounds like something that would have come off the album ‘III Sides To Every Story’

I left the instrumentals for last as I am not big on instrumental tracks. I can appreciate the talent but it’s rarely something I return to for casual listening. Of the instrumentals, opener ‘Tribes’ was the most impressive. I chuckled when the opening chants and sonics included the Wilhelm scream, a sound effect used in countless films, and I appreciated the progressive changes. I would enjoy it more if it did not go on as long as it did. At over seven-minutes, it is a tad too long. ‘Moon’ is simply not my cup of tea. It departs from music in the middle and devolves into mission control sonics, computer noises, and voice over that brings the song to a grinding halt. One song is an amalgamation of a vocal and instrumental track. ‘Isolation’ is over six minutes long and features vocals for the first half of the song. Around the 3:30 mark it transitions to an eclectic instrumental. If the instrumental at the end was ninety seconds shorter, it would make for a stronger song.

The production for the album is top notch. I utilize a pair of Heavys headphones for my reviews (side note – highly recommended headphones) and all the sonics come through crystal clear. There are so many intricate sounds, twists, and turns in the rhythm that it was almost too much to handle upon one listen. I had no idea what directions the songs would take while listening and I found that to be both exciting and impressive.

One thing that did bother me was the lack of information on this album. There was no press release. I scoured the internet for information on who was playing on the album. Outside of the information included in the singles, I could not ascertain who performed on the album.

This collection may be too diverse for some, with progressive metal fans likely to be the ones to embrace the whole album. Every song except two is over five minutes long. While not a progressive fan myself, I found some terrific stand out tracks amongst the collection. How is Fanalo not more well known? He’s an equally fantastic musician and producer. You need to check this out and either pick through your favorites or buckle up and let this album take you for a ride.

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