Boston 'Life, Love, Hope' new album due in December 2013

I'm looking forward to this one, anyone else?

http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/boston-to-release-life-love-hope-in-december/

YESSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!! Tom Scholz is one of my fav guitar players and the mans a pure genius in my eyes I rly wanna hear the tracks with Brad singing considering how he left this world.

That...that has to be the worst album art I have ever seen. Jesus. Hurts to look at it.

That said, I'm excited for this. Tom's never let me down with each album.

This sounds interesting. I don't think I've ever heard anything from their more recent stuff but the first 3 are great.

Cover would be OK except for the title font...

That said, I really have no interest in a new Boston album...

Shawn Of Fire wrote:

Cover would be OK except for the title font...

That said, I really have no interest in a new Boston album...

I am with Shawn, I would be more interested if Brad Delph was still with us. I am sure I will give it a listen, and I hope that it is an interesting album,

Moved to "Let The Music Do The Talking"

S.D. wrote:

Moved to "Let The Music Do The Talking"

Oosh, this could seriously be debated by some, but I'll leave it be. 

"Heart of Metal: Forum for all metal and hard rock related topics."

Last time I checked, Boston was a hard rock band.

I was looking forward to it because it has Brad on it, but disappointed that several of the tracks are from "Corporate Crap". I hope the Brad songs are indeed new songs but I have no interest in hearing anything from the last album. It was God awful, I played it about 3 times and then got rid of it. If this is anything like the first 3 I'm game. Had "Walk On" when it first came out but it just wasn't very good either

mikeinfla wrote:

I was looking forward to it because it has Brad on it, but disappointed that several of the tracks are from "Corporate Crap". I hope the Brad songs are indeed new songs but I have no interest in hearing anything from the last album. It was God awful, I played it about 3 times and then got rid of it. If this is anything like the first 3 I'm game. Had "Walk On" when it first came out but it just wasn't very good either

Serious? Several tracks from Corporate America? What an awful way to package a "comeback" album (for lack of a better word).

I enjoyed Walk On; very memorable songs with Tom's metallic edge.

I jumped off the Boston bandwagon when Third Stage came out, there are a few good songs on that album but overall it's depressingly bland and the arrangements are overwrought, tending to detract instead of enhance the songs. Their debut album is an undisputed classic, but let's be honest, they never released a completely solid album again (though there are good songs scattered throughout).

S.D. wrote:

I jumped off the Boston bandwagon when Third Stage came out, there are a few good songs on that album but overall it's depressingly bland and the arrangements are overwrought, tending to detract instead of enhance the songs.  Their debut album is an undisputed classic, but let's be honest, they never released a completely solid album again (though there are good songs scattered throughout).

This pretty much sums it up for their career. Third Stage, ironically enough, was one of the first CD's I owned (my Dad bought it for me), and I was kind of underwhelmed, thinking, "this is the same band that I keep rocking to on the radio??" But a few songs here and there sounded pretty good, despite being, as you said, bland and overwrought (I can't think of better words). I thought Walk On was a return to form, but not spectacularly so.

The debut is a phenomenal classic. An icon that everyone should own. Don't Look Back was decent although to be honest I can only remember the title track off the top of my head. Third Stage was pretty good, I think. Plus I was able to see them in concert for the first and probably only time for that tour.

I've always heard they sucked in concert because of the diminished studio trickery. Can anyone confirm this?

corplhicks wrote:

That...that has to be the worst album art I have ever seen. Jesus. Hurts to look at it.

That said, I'm excited for this. Tom's never let me down with each album.

Ouch!  That hurts!

Take a look at the full album art here:


Cheers,
Darv

Darv, are you the designer?

Third Stage was the last thing I got from them until I gave Walk On a chance. Walk On has some really good moments on it, but nothing that I can recall at the moment..

I thought they were awesome in concert. They performed the whole Third Stage album,a couple songs from Don't Look Back, and the entire debut album (minus Smokin' for some reason). I didn't notice any problems.

corplhicks wrote:

Darv, are you the designer?

Yes I am the artist and long time Boston fan.
Cheers,
Darv

Darv wrote:

corplhicks wrote:

Darv, are you the designer?

Yes I am the artist and long time Boston fan.  
Cheers,
Darv

You'll forgive me, I hope, for being so frank. The full resolution model you posted has much better color saturation than what was posted on Blabbermouth, which I thought was somewhat bland 3D work. I can also tell now that the background is actually hand-drawn, yeah? I have to be honest in telling you the ship does leave a lot to be desired, but I had thought about this after my post and realized that the ship on Don't Look Back was far worse. Shawn's right about the font as well, but was that typeface your decision? Anyway it's not fully my cup of tea but my hat is off to you for your hard work.

corplhicks wrote:

You'll forgive me, I hope, for being so frank. The full resolution model you posted has much better color saturation than what was posted on Blabbermouth, which I thought was somewhat bland 3D work. I can also tell now that the background is actually hand-drawn, yeah? I have to be honest in telling you the ship does leave a lot to be desired, but I had thought about this after my post and realized that the ship on Don't Look Back was far worse. Shawn's right about the font as well, but was that typeface your decision? Anyway it's not fully my cup of tea but my hat is off to you for your hard work.

Yeah there was something lost in some of the ads in regards to brightness and saturation. I am sure the color on the album should be more accurate.

The nebula background was hand painted in Photoshop using images I took of clouds from my backyard then carefully manipulated in dozens of layers to create layers of detail. The ship was modeled in 3D from the blueprints that came with the DLB album on the inner liner of the LP. I then lit the ship for the background and rendered it out. Finally in Photoshop I finished off the city and fine details. The final image was 6000x3000 pixels. From an artistic standpoint the image is right heavy since it's designed to fold and text to cover the left side.

No, I didn't have any involvement in the title or font.

Just out of curiosity, what would you do differently on the ship? I am always open to a constructive critique.

Cheers,
Darv

I should add that I am new to the forum so I cannot post links or you could see a much larger version that would fill your screen.

My site is LiquidMoonlight [dot] com and the wallpaper versions are in the /llh folder with file name of llh.htm

So if you put that all together you should land on the page.

Darv wrote:

corplhicks wrote:

You'll forgive me, I hope, for being so frank. The full resolution model you posted has much better color saturation than what was posted on Blabbermouth, which I thought was somewhat bland 3D work. I can also tell now that the background is actually hand-drawn, yeah? I have to be honest in telling you the ship does leave a lot to be desired, but I had thought about this after my post and realized that the ship on Don't Look Back was far worse. Shawn's right about the font as well, but was that typeface your decision? Anyway it's not fully my cup of tea but my hat is off to you for your hard work.

Yeah there was something lost in some of the ads in regards to brightness and saturation.  I am sure the color on the album should be more accurate.  

The nebula background was hand painted in Photoshop using images I took of clouds from my backyard then carefully manipulated in dozens of layers to create layers of detail.   The ship was modeled in 3D from the blueprints that came with the DLB album on the inner liner of the LP.   I then lit the ship for the background and rendered it out.   Finally in Photoshop I finished off the city and fine details.   The final image was 6000x3000 pixels.  From an artistic standpoint the image is right heavy since it's designed to fold and text to cover the left side.  

No, I didn't have any involvement in the title or font.  

Just out of curiosity, what would you do differently on the ship?  I am always open to a constructive critique.  

Cheers,
Darv

I'm looking at larger full resolution now; pretty much a different experience altogether. Beautiful starfield, and I'm noticing a slight grain pattern that doesn't show up on the promo pic. I like that grain.

I think the reason the ship doesn't work for me--a matter of taste, obviously--is because I'm not a fan of brightly rendered 3D. The Boston ships are always amazing, to be sure, and I prefer the realism of Third Stage and Walk On. They have this epic sci-fi nature to them with dozens of points of detail that makes me feel like I'm about to experience a space battle or something like that. The Don't Look Back ship--and I emphasize again that yours is much better--comes across as somewhat cartoonish with its simple metallic gradients and that candy red-orange on the face. Of course it was this way on the debut as well, but the hand-drawn, irregular shapes mixed with the darker neon shades gave it a psychedelic blacklight quality that stood out.

In any case, the guitar would really benefit from some rugged detail work, even if to make it seem less like a guitar and more like a complex spaceship. But one thing is for sure: the label should have never used that font. I would be surprised if them slapping on that kind of distraction didn't upset you some.

Welcome Darv, thanks for sharing, it's always nice to hear directly from the artist.