JOHN JEFF TOUCH – First Touch

John Jeff Touch hails from Greece and sights some of his favorite singers as Freddy Mercury, Kip Winger, David Coverdale, Steve Perry, Michael Jackson, George Michael and others. His resume includes commendable finishes in three International vocal competitions along with a laundry list of noteworthy appearances including his 2004 lead vocal role on Lars Eric Mattsson’s project Vision and their release On the Edge. In 2005-2006 he was the singer of the German band called S.I.N. as well as being the singer of the Rock band project Phenomenon. In 2006 he formed a band with Shred guitarist Lakis Ragazas called Killer Sixgun of which they released their own album. In 2007 he formed a band with the guitarist Angel Mourvatis and they released an album under the moniker Cosmicray.

First Touch sees John Jeff Touch embarking on a solo career and with a rather impressive start to his resume it would be unfathomable to expect anything other than a high quality Melodic Hard Rock solo outing.

Unfortunately, this album is a collection of tracks that fall more into the AOR category, which shoots for the pubescent ears of American FM radio listeners versus having anything in common with Rock or Progressive Rock for that matter (the genre that the Lion Music label is best known for). In fact often times the vast majority of the “metallic spark” comes from an occasional piercing guitar solo by Sotiris Gogos who tends to add a little life and edge to the otherwise atmospheric melodies.

There’s no denying that Touch has a smooth vocal style, in fact when things tend to get a bit of an edge on them he sounds like a cross between a young Jack Russell (Great White) and Lenny Wolf (Kingdom Come). The future looks bright for Touch, as there is certainly room and a need for his quality vocals he just shouldn’t expect to garner a lot of attention from Metal Express Radio fans until he focuses more on some “edgier” musical material.

Lineup

John Jeff Touch – Vocals, Keys, Programming, Acoustic Guitars
Sotiris Gogos – Electric and Acoustic Guitars
Milcho Leviev – Piano, Melodica
Alex Deligiannidis – Bass
Yiotis Kiourtsoglou – Bass
Dario Ciccioni – Drums