Terry's Reviews
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Music Reviews: |
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Fret-Essential – The Quintessence Webzine Compilation CD Wretched Productions - 2003 |
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| The CD is kind of set up as a wresting ring where
different guitarists from all over the planet step in and try to blast the listener away.
Drums come at machine gun delivery and the notes blur into a frenzy of arpeggios. But some
of the players mix things up and it makes for an interesting way to spend an hour
listening to. Dave Beegle/Fourth Estate is up first with "Kara Kum." This first track has an Egyptian celebratory feel. The best part is when Beegle slows down and plays haunting, exotic guitar. 3:20 into the song it gets heavier and reminded me an awful lot of what Hans Zimmer did for the score to John Woo’s MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 2. The female voice further helps give the opening track a Middle Eastern feel. Michael Knight lets loose like a hungry pit bull escaping from being chained up with "Twisted Metal." The drumming is fast and furious while the main riff matches the speed of the drumbeat. Knight shreds all over the tune and really takes out his aggression on the guitar strings. Ray DeTone plays "The Journey Begins" with a touch of melancholy. Though the playing is nice, the guitar tone is somewhat hazed with an overcast of sadness. Machine gun drumming sets up the platform for Tom Kopyto to shred out "Black Inside." Then Rob Sbar grabs the shred baton and runs out his leg with "Lexical Gap." "Submarine Limousine" is a crunchy heavy metal tune by GasHead. Mike Lopez lets arpeggios take us down under the sea of heavy riffs. Nicola Fassi pours his solo guitar over the boogie rock tempo of ‘Rebel Hot." The silky guitar tone Dave Villano attains in "Carpé Diem" gives his sound more identity than many of the previous tunes. I liked the pretty piano accompanying the guitar. "Inside Out" is a pleasant rock tune for John Sullivan to play a brand of metallic lead guitar that harmonizes and leads the tune almost like a human voice. "Fallout At 2114" features Carlos Santana like lead guitar work from Victor Samalot of Rare Blend. Art Faccio does indeed create a "Fire Storm." Faccio’s style is reminiscent of Yngwie Malmsteen. David Neil Cline Band creates a nasty little track of heavy riffing and shred called "Alien Fetus." Chaz DePaolo boogies with "Celibate Funk" where the riffs are blues based. Sean Mercer takes us back into the shred shed with "Opus Pt. 2." Jim Morris wraps the CD with a heavy metal classical tune called "Distant Bliss" which has a touch of Satriani. |
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