New Albums
A selection of new and reissued guitar releases, including Album Of The Month
toMMy eMManuel accomPlice one Mascot Label
It’s a contentious thing to say but Tommy Emmanuel could be the best steel-string acoustic guitarist in the world. Why? Well, his sense of timing and stunning technique beggar belief. With this new album, he duets up with a wonderful cast of musicians, spanning Mark Knopfler and Jerry Douglas to Ricky Skaggs and Bryan Sutton. With a superbly crisp production the 16 tracks are a real joy. Tommy is a rounded musician in the fullest sense - he can blaze up front, comp with inventive and solid ideas and has a wealth of taste and tricks for six-string anoraks like us. Want some shred? Check out C-Jam Blues with David Grisman (mandolin) and Bryan Sutton (acoustic). Smoking! Want tasty emotion? Keeping’ It Reel with Clive Carroll is beautifully performed. Jazz with pretty chords? Djangology with Frank Vignola and Vinny Raniolo is foot-tapping and gorgeous. As for nice songs, You Don’t Want To Get One Of Those is humorous and chilled, as if Tommy and Mark Knopfler are in your lounge one evening, having a Guinness or two and jamming with smiles on their faces. It takes confidence, taste and ability to be this exposed on an album, but with Tommy it’s a walk in the park. He’s way more than merely accomplished, that’s for sure!
Black laBel Society Grimmest Hits Spinefarm Records
Best known as Ozzy Osbourne’s guitarist during the late 80s and 90s, Zakk Wylde and his EMG-equipped Les Paul make for one of the most revered six-string pairings in rock. For over a decade Zakk has also fronted Black Label Society, and Grimmest Hits is their 10th release; not a greatest hits but rather a set of 12 slamming new songs. Think hard rock meets southern rock with lashings of blues scale riffing, blazing picking and pinch harmonics. The appeal with Zakk’s music is his ability to uniquely blend his influences (Black Sabbath and Lynyrd Skynyrd to Eddie Van Halen and John McLaughlin) to create a fresh new sound. The first few tracks are pounding riffers that evoke ‘Led Zeppelin meets Soundgarden’ territory, with guitar work that’s both memorable and rhythmically twisting. Four tracks in, All That Once Shined features not only a great vocal performance from Zakk, but the Sabbath-like riffing also inspires a fantastic solo; Wylde’s vibrato is one of the best in all of hard rock. It’s not all pounding dropped tuning though, as The Only Words is a lovely light-footed song with an emotive vocal and clean single-coil guitar playing; a potential radio single for sure, alongside The Day That Heaven Had Gone Away (what a gorgeous solo!). If you’re a fan of great guitar playing and an eclectic mix of rock songs, this really is worth getting!
Dan PatlanSky Perfection Kills Caroline International
South African blues rocker Dan Patlansky has been building a reputation as both a songwriter and virtuoso guitarist since his album Dear Silence Thieves made a serious impact back in 2014. This was followed by the highly acclaimed Introvertigo in 2016 and since then, live appearances – most recently a UK tour with Joanne Shaw Taylor in autumn 2017 – have bolstered his reputation as an all-round Strat-powered firebrand and his collection of positive reviews and awards has begun to multiply. Both his previous albums have been produced by Theo Crous, but Perfection Kills sees the bluesman take over production duties himself. “I learnt so much working with Theo,” he explains. “I worked on pre-production and songwriting with Theo on a couple of the tracks for Perfection Kills and applied what I learnt to the recording and production process of this one.” The result is a raw, energy-enriched rollercoaster of an album that kicks of with the high-octane throb of Johnny and continues apace with some truly excellent rhythm and lead from Dan’s battered 60s Strat. “Perfection Kills is all about my vision of making a record that still makes the songwriting a priority as in the past, the final product delivering a far more real and organic result…” There are certainly signs of an ongoing development in the crafting of songs like the moody and brooding Mayday which stands in direct contrast to the powerful grunt of Too Far Gone and Junket Man, the latter complete with a guitar solo that not only shreds, but pays due deference to Patlansky’s hero Stevie Ray Vaughan at the same time. An album full of colourful contours, Perfection Kills certainly stands repeated listening and we suspect that when he returns to these shores to headline a tour in March, the album will have won him a new legion of fans.
GoDStickS faced WitH raGe K Scope
As regular contributor to our sister magazine Guitarist, and Godsticks frontman Darran Charles explained, “With Faced With Rage I wanted to continue the same heavy journey that we began with 2015’s Emergence but this time occasionally delve into more atmospheric and textural sounds that we’d not previously explored.” It’s a dark journey, for sure, but the landscape is a fascinating one; constantly undulating with writhing, twisting guitar riffs and subterraneous bass parts, held together with Darran’s dystopian lyrics. Shafts of light emerge with tracks like We Are Leaving, a widescreen starless ballad with a creeping melodic guitar solo. It’s an album that is constantly intriguing with labyrinthine changes of pace and colour, and we really like it!
MoonParticle Hurricane esmirelda Moonparticle
Ex-Steven Wilson guitarist Niko Tsonev has gathered together an impressive prog posse for this solo project. Moonparticle is a collective of musicians drawn from every point of progressive rock’s compass: this includes Theo Travis on sax (Steven Wilson, Robert Fripp, Soft Machine Legacy), vocalist Grog Lisee (Ozzy Osbourne) and drummer Craig Blundell (Steven Wilson) – you get the idea. A successful online pledge campaign yielded the finance to make the album and those who contributed have had their faith fully rewarded as the record dips and dives into melodic, wellconstructed songs, atmospheric instrumental passages and pounding guitar riffs. It’s an impressive beginning and we’re already hungry for more.