“Set The World On Fire” is the first album from a renewed partnership between singer Johnny Gioeli and drummer / singer Deen Castronovo, aka Gioeli-Castronovo. They may not get any prizes for band names, but they do deliver a great rock album, with both sharing the role of lead vocalist! The two first worked together in the initial Hardline line-up back in 1991/92 when the album “Double Eclipse” was released. They went their own ways following the initial demise of Hardline in 1992, but 25 years later have been reunited by Frontiers Muisc who released “Set The World On Fire” on 13th July. So far I’ve played three tracks from the album on the Shows on Rock Radio NI – “Through” on the A-Z Show on 29th May and the title track and “It’s All About You” on the Friday NI Rocks Shows on 6th July and 27th July respectively.

 


 

 

 

After departing Hardline to join the Ozzy Osbourne band in 1992, Castronovo went on to rejoin guitarist Neal Schon (who he’d worked with in Bad English and Hardline) in Journey in 1998. He was part of Journey until 2015 and joined The Dead Daisies in 2017. In addition, Castronovo was a founding member of Revolution Saints in 2014 along with Doug Aldrich and Jack Blades, taking on the role of lead vocalist as well as drummer for the band’s two albums to date. He also recently dueted with Issa on the track “Sacrifice Me” from her latest album.


After the demise of Hardline in 1992, Gioeli had effectively disappeared from the music scene until he was approached by Axel Rudi Pell in 1998 to take on the vacant vocalist spot following the departure of Jeff Scott Soto. Over the past twenty years he has released numerous albums with ARP and continues to front the band. During this time he has also fronted Hardline who reformed in 2002 for the release of the album “II”. Further Hardline studio albums followed in 2009, 2012 and 2016.


The other musicians on the album are Alessandro Del Vecchio on keyboards and backing vocals, Mario Percudani on guitar and Nik Mazzucconi on bass.


Frontiers Music are of course the masters at bringing artists together for collaboration albums and with the Gioeli-Castronovo partnershio they’re definitely on to another winner. Hopefully we’ll see more from them in the future.


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About “NI Rocks Recommends”

The simple idea behind “NI Rocks Recommends” is to acknowledge and promote some of the great music being submitted to Rock Radio NI. The albums that I’ll be recommending are those that you’ll hear me playing tracks from on my shows. I'll not be giving marks or ratings or analyzing the tracks in great detail; just telling you something about the artist and the album. It’s a personal recommendation to go check something out, not a traditional “review”!

 

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