|
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
Three years ago, Lars Eric Mattsson released an instrumental album where he made an abundant use of orchestrations. It was an ambitious project, even if not jaw-dropping. “Epicentre” is a more stripped-down affair with music that is creative and generally well-executed. Frustratingly there is one main aggravating element that gatecrashes the party.
Apart from the drums (which are played by Christer Jansson) in his new album Mattsson takes care of pretty much everything….guitars, bass, keyboards, production, lead vocals…etc. And, well, how to put it nicely…the album reinforces my belief that great guitarists tend to stumble in the vocal department. And it’s a real shame because on the whole, “Epicentre” is a striking exposition of music unshackled by excessive genre limitations. We can say, in fact, that it’s a blend of Neo-Classical Shred, Blues, Jazz and Classic Rock.
Take ‘South Of The Border’ – here’s an instrumental that evocates the Blues of Gary Moore and has some cool hand percussion rhythms weaved into it. ‘No Way, No Surrender’ has riffs that reminded me of Led Zeppelin and melodies of Rainbow – definitely a number with Classic Rock roots. One of the most interesting elements of this album is Mattsson’s fusion of Jazz with other genres and ‘Too Late’ and ‘Mirror’ are excellent examples of this.
There are a couple of songs (‘Cinnamon’ being one of them) which I felt didn’t bring anything worthwhile to the table. And if the (poor) vocal qualities could be ignored, I get the impression that some songs would have sounded better without any lyrics at all. Yet, as I suggested earlier, there’s a lot of good stuff going on. For one Mattsson is an excellent guitar soloist and has one of his finest moments in ‘Melting Down’. He’s also very adept at playing bass.
An interesting, if flawed, release. | ||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||
