Guitar instrumental albums at one point were a phenomenon when renowned names such as Tony MacAlpine, Steve Vai, Chris Johnson, Chris Poland and of course Joe Satriani were hip rock and metal couture.  Correspondingly, North American audiences hung over on corporate glam metal found disfavor for guitar solos upon the advent of thumb-biting nineties grunge riffs.  The generation reared upon those stripped, chunky sounds has only recently re-evaluated its anti-soloing stance.  It’s taken the jaw-slacking shred of everyone from Marty Friedman to Herman Li of Dragonforce to Shadows Fall’s Jon Donais to recapture the desire for scorching tremolo and wailing arpeggio scales, but it has come about once again.

Operating in the regional backyard of Jon Donais is the New England-based Scott Motyka.  As Shadows Fall has historically found solace in Buddhism as a launch pad for their power-thrash exultations, don’t expect Scott Motyka to be snapping his wrists and neck muscles to mega bpms.  However, Motyka, a very accomplished guitarist in his own right (and utterly heavy when he wants to be), turns to spirituality and organized religion as partial platforms for his exploratory work on his seven-song debut Cut…From Within.

As good art is bled more than manufactured, Scott Motyka expressively utilizes his sharply-dressed capacities on Cut…From Within, so much to the point he trims the fat many guitar instrumental albums even today suffer from.  Instead, Motyka finds the soul within his compositions creates a basic playroom for them to thrive within and then sculpts from there.  Motyka himself describes his album as a place where he could “explore some of the key turning points” of his life, thus making “a record that captured those experiences – and in this case without words.”

Point taken out the chute with the hammering “Betrayer’s Trust,” a beastly opening number with as much Billy Sheehan and Paul Gilbert guiding its heavy rhythm as the entire King’s X trio.  Motyka admits to letting some anger flow into this track and if the mad tempo and argumentative bass weren’t enough to coax his proposed vehemence, his busy solos inflect his position.

In contrast, Motyka’s smooth calypso pulse of “The Romantical” exhibits some of Joe Satriani’s dreamy syncopation and random scale-spelunking, yet Scott Motyka keeps a primary groove flowing in a seductive wave while tempering his solos for the most part.  Detailed only when necessary, “The Romantical” is a playful love bite to cozy up with.

As many prolific guitarists today have optimistically exploited within their works, Motyka incorporates Eastern world flair on “Rabbiam” with tabla and percussion to assist his slinking rhythm.  It serves as a proverbial pause before the rapid-fire “Seniorita” and the snaggletoothed “Great Wall of Douglas,” the latter of which finds Motyka pulling distorted threads of white noise to accompany his fret whipping and whammy crashing.

Scott Motyka, with his exemplary self-produced album, is to be considered one of the United States’ best-kept guitar secrets.  A family man and assumed spirit chaser, his talent resounds from both his lofty whims and his grounded discipline.  The man wants to engage his audience on a cerebral level and he certainly meets his goal.

Reviewed By Ray Van Horn Jr. 

Ray Van Horn, Reviews Cut From Within, Scott Motyka

At one time, Shonen Knife penetrated the American punk rock market, although you have to poll the old school fans in order to cue to mind the seminal Japanese femme trio.  Ditto eighties metalheads who keep the memory of Loudness and E-Z-O alive largely unto themselves. 

Nowadays, as Japan has crashed its media will into a gradually-receptive American-Rome power market (currently on the ropes, as current headlines relay), Puffy Amiyumi briefly became pop rock darlings who took the Beatles’ best lines and riffs and turned their grossly-addictive bubblegum hooks into a small franchise.  Meanwhile, Boris and Balzac have become hipster elite of the American sludge and punk undergrounds.  Kodo…they’re an entity of wonderment unto themselves.

Japan’s flourishing entertainment culture infected North America with the dreadful Pokemon, but it at least enriched our appreciation of animation with Akira, Bubblegum Crisis and Strait-Jacket, as it has in horror and martial arts fantasy epics varying from Audition to Shinobi.

Beware of Imari Tones.  This spiritually-based pop-rock trio is within grasp of breaking through internationally, if you go by their rocksteady rhythm section that hails eighties hair rock and power metal, thrown akimbo with diverse modes related to pop punk and emo.  This group, spearheaded by guitarist/vocalist Takahiro “Tone” Nakamine, likes to rock as much as they do to bounce on butterscotch clouds.  Though this may be the first time you’re hearing the name Imari Tones, in Japan they have more than a handful of albums including Japanese Pop.

What Imari Tones has going for them is a keen ear for slick grooves, pop-mindedness and a hell of a guitar framework with which to deliver a driving, clean-cut instrumental sound.  Musically-speaking, you can put Imari Tones onstage opening for Whitesnake or even Jimmy Eat World. 

Coming off with a pleasurable beat and happily swirling guitar lines on the largely-yummy open track “Winning Song,” the only thing getting in Imari Tones’ way is Tone Nakamine’s lopsided and overbearing vocals. 

Unfortunately, the majority of Japanese Pop is a bit of a grind to sift through because of Nakamine’s off-kilter wailing, and the likely reason for this is the man admirably sings most of the album in English.  In order to gratify his would-be expanded audience, Nakamine overcompensates by delivering his notes with sometimes unnerving pitches, none more painful than on the musically-emotional “Skies of Tokyo” (a shame, since the instrumental finale is wonderful) and the embarrassing falsetto-fest of “I.”

Nevertheless, Imari Tones has their moments such as the Bangles-meets-Hawthorne Heights ditty “Karma Flower” and they put in a very heroic effort on “Iron Hammer,” where the group amps up with some classic metal riffs and a focused drive all around.  Nakamine’s guitar solo is especially impressive here.

Musically-speaking, Japanese Pop has the energetic goods to make them a potential winner.  Imari Tones knows how to play their instruments as well as craft upbeat and catchy tunes.  More work in the vocal department (and recorded with less overbearing echo) and this will be a group to keep your eyes on.

Reviewed By Ray Van Horn

Ray Van Horn, Reviews IMARi ToNES, Japanes Pop

Michigan’s Holloway (once known as Avitus) which houses brotherly principals Ross and Josh Morgan plus guitarist Shawn Julien have a mission in mind with their debut album Illusions.  Beyond extending their music into cross-changeable media via proposed poetry, film, visual art and online tools, Holloway seeks to reinvent modern prog rock and metal by stripping it down to the basics and sculpting from the primers.

While their debut single “The Visitor” is structured identically to Queensryche’s title track “Empire” only with a different sway to the primary melody, Holloway comes to the table with figurative vibes akin to Dream Theater, 3, Staind, Coheed and Cambria and Underoath on Illusions. 

Sometimes Illusions mixes up power prog with emo punk on the title track or “In the Dreamscapes of the Dead” and sometimes Holloway jacks up the volume with AOR-reminiscent tones blended with pop punk, using “Plague Marks” as an example.  The difference for Holloway on “Plague Marks” is its sensibility to fuse some slinking percussion on the bridge before hammering the track home.

Illusions gets its audience’s attention right out the gate with a superb guitar-happy detonation on “Non-Inception” before opting for more ear-coaxing verses and a hooky chorus.  Group leader Ross Morgan switches his vocal delivery from early twenty-something croon to a bellowed roar deafening enough to match the explosive opening which makes a reprise before “Non-Inception’s” last verse.

Illusions’ storyline, per the band, is “about a guy who loses his girlfriend and he essentially gets trapped with finding her soul, contacting her dead soul.”  Aiming high with a cinematic mindframe for this album, Holloway best serves this purpose on the dark and graceful “The Current,” which slowly builds upon a melancholic piano line with high-end, swooning vocal tones from Ross Morgan and perfectly-sprinkled xylophone sublets. 

While “Teeth & Tongue” and “The Gauntlet” adopt a jagged flavor somewhere in the middle of Queensryche and Staind, one of Illusions’ finest-written tracks follows afterwards with “May My Actions Be Seen.”  “Actions” is rather busy considering its mid-tempo pace, yet the crunching layers and detailed note patterns Holloway heaps with each escalating bar is brought to climax then jerked back to start position for another build-up.

Opening their veins for their listeners, Ross and Josh Morgan seep past wounds into Illusions, primarily exorcising past heartache from the loss of their mother.  Ross Morgan especially utilizes the various media around him to convey the emotional wreckage his muse (and straightforwardly his and Josh’s feelings) wrestles with.

Illusions’ cryptic cover art (reminiscent of something between Heironymous Bosch, Tim Burton and the old Hammer horror flicks) courtesy of Susan Van Sant projects the horrific sentiments the Morgan brothers wish to share with the world through the vehicle of their aggrieved muse.

The final mix of Illusion was overseen by Jens Bogren of Fascination Street Studios in Sweden, master polisher behind the work of established metal leaguers Opeth, Katatonia and Soilwork.  Suffice it to say, Bogren’s touches on Illusions is one of the reasons it sounds as professional as it does.

For the listener’s purposes, the Morgans’ bloodletting on Illusions is mostly visceral stuff considering it could’ve gone in a weepier direction.  Illusions is powerful at times and depending on how deep the Morgans want to push the limits with this project, their album could find itself a sleeper hit in the underground.

Reviewed By Ray Van Horn

Ray Van Horn, Reviews Holloway, Illusions

Ah, to be in a Honolulu paradise banging away a New York Minute or two with only a care for the moment expunged from your jiving fingertips on a grand piano fit for Carnegie or Radio City…

With standup bass and percussion, Dan Freedman can whip up a nostalgic frenzy on his piano with enough finesse to queue up Dave Brubeck, Chick Corea and Vince Guaraldi.  Have a go with his tune “On Green Dolphin Street” for evidence.  By his lonesome, Freedman reveals a knack for improvisation to familiar melodies with jazz piano revisionism on his album Art Attack.

Though he could easily hold sentry on the minstrel stool of any nightclub or Nordstrom’s (for the record, the man has provided compositions for films and advertisements), Freedman’s playing is far more footloose and sometimes dreamier than being relegated a Liberace-for-hire.  The twinkling melancholy whispering through the seven minutes of Freedman’s “Very Early” and then the aspirant “Wheatland” is more akin to a pleasing coffeehouse savoir faire, if not a private audience where Freedman has plenty of control yet lets himself swim confidentially in the base of his carefree renditions.

Noting on his business card “rich melodies that don’t lose the melody,” the proof positive is to hear his take on Ben Bernie and company’s “Sweet Georgia Brown.”  You’ll undoubtedly be thinking Harlem Globetrotters as anyone does within the first few bars of the 1949 version by Brother Bones & His Shadows; however, Freedman’s take is closer in spirit to the ragtime era in which it was conceived.  His fingers shuck and tap a shambling rhythm on the low notes while dancing madcap in the higher leads, cheerfully extemporizing Dixie doodle overtop hints of the core melody.

While most people snicker at the childish tappity-taps of Alexander Borodin, et.al.’s “Chopsticks,” Freedman takes the primary waltzing flavor of the song and dashes tertiary elegance amidst his pumping scales, creating an imaginative and spritely reinterpretation to something universally-known and otherwise considered by many to be trite.

Proving he can stylishly do-up more contemporary songs, Freedman methodically lavishes The Beatles’ “Michelle” with determined post-melody structures with almost the same dramatic flair as Yoshiki did for Kiss’ “Black Diamond.” 

Freedman’s self-written and arranged “Laughing Child” is one of Art Attack’s sweetest and most poignant moments—a genuine labor of love—while the album’s bonus track “Lives at Stake” gives the listener a tribal percussive conduct, sending off this unique endeavor with the same culture clash bravado as Art Blakey’s roots-meets-jazz masterpiece Drum Suite.

Reviewed By Ray Van Horn

Ray Van Horn, Reviews Art Attack, Dan Freedman

Metallica is mostly back on track as of their latest album Death Magnetic.  Iron Maiden, in turn, recently showed the world what old school live presentation is all about on their Somewhere on Tour road jaunt.  Nonetheless, metal is nearly at skid with a large percentile of today’s revisionists who cannot get away from writing songs without confounded breakdowns, or they’re making a mockery of themselves with barfed growls and/or faux satanic facades in ghoulish face paint. 

As wonderful as it’s been to see metal make a return to the masses (even as an underground phenomenon), it is threatened with stagnancy the more people who get into the scene with little substance to offer.  Working the hell out of their Sacramento region, Axiom is sculpting something potentially special with bricks borrowed from past foundries and cemented with modes of prog and modern metal blasts on A Means to an End.

Primarily the conception between two minds, Justin Herzer and Scott Whisenhunt (where bassist John Coffee fits into the scheme on this album, it’s not relayed), A Means to an End benefits from a stout showing by Metallica this year as a fair amount of this album bears similar fruits, be it the choruses of “All For Nothing” or simply the way the instrumental intro “Cell” sets up “Dead Dream” in a less devastating manner as in the beginning of Metallica’s Master of Puppets.  Still, the feeling is quite the same out the gate on A Means to an End.

At least the album strives for its own identity with airs of Tool and progressive metal like, say, Novembers Doom, though without the latter’s death roaring since Scott Whisenhunt wails cleanly throughout the album.

At first Justin Herzer’s drumming gets a bit too flashy with overambitious rolls, splashes and choppy double bass strikes that undermine the core tempo of Axiom’s music.  Undoubtedly Herzer is a gifted drummer and the further A Means to an End goes along, the more homogenous he becomes to the songs, lighting up “Nucleus” (the album’s best cut) the seven-minute-plus “Onesided” and the 8:31“Godgiven.” 

Whisenhunt’s guitars on A Means to an End give the album diverse personae through drawn and playful distortion (“Nucleus,” for example) and smooth syncopation as plucked satisfyingly on “A Perfect World” and the marathon closer “Don’t Blink.” 

As Axiom grows stronger with each song on A Means to an End, so too do they evolve as a unit.  Still to be considered in their nurturing phase, the random imperfections in the earlier part of the album are compensated later on and you can hear these guys growing alongside the very music presented on this album, exhibiting grace and maturity with piano supplementation on “A Perfect World.”  The direction the latter half of the album assumes indicates Axiom is leaning towards prog metal, which should be interesting to hear where they shift come their next recording.  You have to admire Axiom for at least sticking to a conviction against conventionalism, despite their namesake which would indicate possible adherence to metal’s contemporary norms.  Salud…

Reviewed By Ray Van Horn

Ray Van Horn, Reviews A Means To An End, Axiom