aglasshouse
I'd always enjoyed BOSTON's music, especially tracks from their self titled, Don't Look Back, and Walk On. So when I found out that BOSTON had released a new album back in 2013, I was actually pretty psyched. I mean, I had never hated any of their material, however I did know for a fact that BOSTON did tend to release radio-friendly material on most of their albums (this is not totally bad, but it does grind on you after awhile). So overall, I did have a slightly more positive feeling than I did negative towards Life, Love & Hope.
I opened Spotify, searched up BOSTON, scrolled to LL&H, and played it all the way through. My ultimate conclusion was as such:
"Eh."
I mean, it did sound VERY similar to the old BOSTON, perhaps with slightly less gusto as their past self. The same guitars slap out the same old tunes as they did back in the 70's and 80's, but as I said before, they just did not have as much feeling (heh). Also, sort of symbolizing this was the cover art. It was the usual giant flying saucer with the city of Boston atop it encased in a glass dome with the huge letters of BOSTON inscribed on the front. However, there wasn't anything around it except for what appeared to be red space. That was pretty disappointing. As a kid, I always loved BOSTON's album covers, especially the one for Walk On. I suppose the album cover does sort of show my feelings towards the album.
TL;DR, this album isn't terrible. If you are really looking for some good BOSTON, however, go pick up their debut instead. You won't be seeing any new content on this release.
I do not recommend this album.