Reviewed by Paul Keeble

I was never really into instrumental albums until asked to help make one a while back. Now I appreciate a lot more the effort needed to maintain interest. This offering from America's well respected guitar virtuoso is excellent; with lots of variation in styles and textures, and an overall uplifting, celebratory feel which is hard to categorise (a clue may be in the insert note about the final track - a nice reworking of "Rock Of Ages"). What it isn't is 45 minutes of glossy, over produced, ego-centric widdly-widdly - no, this is a very talented and imaginative guitar player and a tight backing band having a good time and letting us in on it. Insert notes (always welcome) give some insights into each track (would you believe this album features "Living Dog Drum"?!!). For me the more acoustic-based tunes work best ("Soaring", "Lakota") and despite a slight sag into a couple of weaker melodies in the second half, 'Pawn Shop' is well worth investigation. (If you play guitar, have some Kleenex handy, then check out Jeff's instruction videos). Another insert note says, "There were no drugs or alcohol involved in the making of this record." Amen! No talent boosters necessary!

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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