This section of the department focuses in on a selected range of titles that we feel should be considered as prospective purchases by music fans into the style of music that this department is promoting. We do this by providing you with detailed, accurate and entertaining reviews of the titles concerned, and make all of them readily available via our on-line store. The selection we offer will mix the new with the old – the known with the unknown and will normally be confined to quality releases. However, just to show that we don’t just say everything is good regardless, and to keep the entertainment levels up, we’ll redress the balance and make the odd exception to the rule by dropping the odd turkey into this part of the shop, giving it a good old dressing down and plucking, just to lighten things up a bit!

Please note: When we feel it necessary, we will compare the music to names that you might be more familiar with. This is done just to help point you in the right direction, but usually we differentiate between the music actually sounding like that other artist or band’s work or just being influenced by it.

Some titles will be given extended reviews with much more in-depth & detailed track-by-track information.

This version can be selected by clicking the ‘more product information’ link at bottom right of first review.

‘Featured Titles’ files will remain in the CD Services on-line shop as long as we feel necessary, or for a period that has been agreed with the musicians concerned. Average ‘up’ time will be 4–6 weeks, then the reviews will be archived in a ‘Reference Library’ partition in the same department, and there they will be accessible to anyone caring to browse, until such a time as they are deleted. The ‘Feature’ can be resurrected for the available titles at any time.

A new talent with a debut album that is a positive barnstormer of mixing melody, ferocity, dynamics, power, restraint and compositional skill. Right from the start, the multi-layered rampaging guitar work takes you by the throat, with a whole stack of melodies and some quite unique playing in the old bass department, while the drummer just anchors the thing to the floor with stick work that’s as tight as it comes. The guitars just take off and sparkle, and all in a shade under the first four minutes – and it’s the perfect start to a thoroughly quality album. Consisting of forty minutes across 10 tracks, you’ll find a range of styles from metallic to bluesy, all delivered with a passion and love for the music that this guy obviously has. Superbly played throughout, there is a master guitarist at work here, in terms of sheer feel alone. While it’s all very solid, it has a flow that few can match, in terms of melody lines being developed within any given track, and the solos pour forth, but never at the expense of the structure and emotional content of the music. It’s not going to be hailed as particularly innovative or a heavy metal work of art, but more as a purely enjoyable CD that’s a totally consistent, long-lasting slice of rock guitar pleasure, that’s up there with the best.

507171
Weight: 150.00 g

It makes a real change to have an instrumental CD by a USA guitar-driven indie band that, instead of being one of full-on power with scenes of incredible density, emerges as an album of slowly rolling melodies, flowing, lurching rhythms and electric guitars that shimmer and shine in the sunlight - almost like more languid mix of Television, Pell Mell, Tortoise and similar bands. With the guitar work covering a wide range of textures, occasionally blowing on intense, but more often kept at a neat, solid reflective level, the music just fast enough to ensure you're hooked, but slow enough to allow you to take in the crystalline purity of the 13 tracks of great guitar music it offers.

906218
Weight: 150.00 g

A new USA instrumental trio featuring electric guitar, electric bass and drums, and it’s a debut album of wicked axe work and strong rhythm section cohesion. This group is right there up with Cuneiform label’s Hosemobile & Djam Karet when it comes to scorching tracks that motor and drive. 8 driving tracks that featuring guitar work that just flies out in blistering fashion, worthy of heavy King Crimson at its most bone crunching. It’s a (near) hour-long combination of complexities and direct action, and from start to finish this is a band on top form and blazing a path to the stars with guitar music that’s nothing short of riveting.

574720
Weight: 150.00 g

Click here for more product information

The band’s 2^nd album is much more professionally produced both aesthetically and musically, with an altogether more cohesive unit playing together in total harmony. With absolutely impeccable production and writing throughout, all the rough edges are gone, replaced with a polished series of intricate, powerful numbers that bring out the best in the band as a unit. The electric bass really pounds upfront in the mix, while the drums sound crisper, resonant and more solid this time round. The electric guitar soars, sizzles, smoulders, sparks and drives, with every composition revealing new layers, tones, chords progressions and time signatures, with some quite phenomenal passages of instrumental playing skills on display. 11 tracks that clock-up between three and eleven minutes each, and whether it’s powerful riffing or storm-force electric guitar soloing, this trio seem to be telepathically linked on a musical level. They have captured the feel and heart of erstwhile jamming rock style brews, keeping it tight and in check as they cruise through an album that even manages to blow the first one away (not an easy task) in it’s wake. The guitars shimmer and shine throughout a variety of vari-paced compositions that are largely incredibly powerful, but dynamic, melodic and crunchy – This is the missing link between rock, jamming, fusion and beyond - An indispensable album of outstanding, forceful guitar work that isn’t just rock or fusion, or some convenient mix of the two – This stands up in its own right as a breathtaking work of guitar genius. 

574722
Weight: 150.00 g

A hot instrumental, album from one of the world’s leading female rock guitarists. With Foucher on guitar & keyboards, John Vittori contributing solid electric bass work and Matt Scurfield providing a sterling performance on drums, every composition on this 10-track album oozes quality. For starters, the production is first rate, allowing you to experience every facet of Jaye’s music, with a crisp, fresh, organic and vibrant sound. The playing is exemplary too, with compositions that, no matter what the level of intensity and atmosphere, never fail to keep your absolutely riveted. The music features some marvellous layers, with a full, solid feel throughout all forty-five minutes, but it’s the way she puts the tracks together that is the secret to the real enjoyment of the album. Take ‘Angst’ (track 2) for instance, with its fantastic combination of electric guitar leads over an acoustic guitar backdrop, rumbling bass and chunky percussion, opening in a gloriously bluesy manner as the track flows forward – it’s full of melody and the emotional intensity levels are set just at the perfect level for the piece. A riff sparks into life and takes the tune off into solid rocking realms at a pace that is powerful, heavy and intense, but not fast or over indulgent in any way, and the track swings back and forth between the two styles in a balanced and blissful manner. All 10 tracks are kept at just the right length for you to get maximum enjoyment without getting distracted or feeling that you’ve not heard enough of the ideas on offer. This is the sort of album that anyone into instrumental rock music should be able to appreciate and enjoy long-term – The sound of instrumental rock at its finest!

367053
Weight: 150.00 g

Whetted your appetite? So, now think about buying this fantastic new CD from one of Canada's leading guitarists. This album features all but forty-minutes of fusion-laced, dynamic instrumental rock, and above all, seriously strong melodies and rhythms. The guitar work, predominantly electric, is exemplary throughout all 12 cuts, and it's as fiery a brand of sizzling soloing that you'll hear! Just witness the opening two tracks for proof of the rock solid approach Greigg and the guys have, as their music positively thunders along with the guitars blazing a melodic path into oblivion. But it's not all about the lead guitars either – There is the excellent work of Paul Loehheholz on bass guitar, pounding and beating his way through the floor, plus Brian Waters on keyboards, synths, percussion and programming (and “Fripp” guitars on 'Redline'). Both combine faultlessly with Greigg to make this the full-sounding, urgent, dynamic and superbly produced album that it is. Even allowing for the comparisons made at the beginning of this review, this CD has got more firepower, better production, a clearer sound, greater arrangements and hotter guitar work than most in it’s field, and it’s certain to bring a smile to the face of any Jeff Beck fan and almost anyone into solid consistent electric guitar music in general. A quality album that hooks you more with each and every play!

941929
Weight: 150.00 g

Killer acoustic albums are like London buses - none for ages and then a few arrive at once. This one came in during one of these times and it’s a gem of an album from the pair (with apt. Q-258 on percussion) whose last electric album was a power-fest of mega proportions. This, however, features just 4 long tracks in fifty-four minutes, from acoustic guitar, bass and drums. Not only does it sound wonderful, it's superbly played and composed, very atmospheric and conjures images of lengthy Fahey excursions with a greater degree of flow or some of the early Sandy Bull works without the Eastern raga element. Either way, as acoustic albums go, the length of the tracks means that you can really dive into this and just let the music pour all over you in a gorgeous flowing mix of melody, serenity, subtle power and rhythmic taste - One of THE best acoustic albums for a long, long time, exuding quality and enjoyment from every pore.

983580
Weight: 150.00 g

The 3^rd album from one of America's best 'unknown' rock/metal guitarists, and it's definitely his best yet. The opening track powers its way in on a hotbed of scorching riffs and sizzling lead guitar, underpinned by some monster electric bass and crashing drum-kit work that propels the composition along with real passion. Throughout this instrumental album, you will hear the bass and drums sound as they really should on any metal guitar album, with superb production and playing that’s even better. But, it is Rob's show, although he rarely does anything without the rhythm section accompanying him, and it's a veritable feast of multi-guitar riffs and molten hot solos, this time with an even greater sense of range and variation that ever before. He’s not afraid to show the intensity within a track and then allow it to build before the track explodes with a vengeance. The band is electrically charged and on fire, with several tracks thundering along, but absolutely kept on the right side of enjoyment, avoiding any hint of self-indulgence or the feeling that the compositions are just mere vehicles for flashy guitar work. Every single track is well constructed, thoughtfully arranged and totally dynamic, and there’s not a bad one on the whole set. This is a winner in anyone's book, and it’s one you simply have to hear, as it leaves the likes of Vai and Satriani standing firmly at the starting line while Johnson nearly finishes the race. Brilliant.

523167
Weight: 150.00 g

Oddly enough this disc starts on track 7 so don’t think you’ve got a faulty copy when the initial 6 tracks roll on by in digital silence for the first eighteen silent seconds! However, when the actual music does start, you enter a most beautiful world where slowly travelling seas of guitars meet with bass and drums, with fluid textural colorations adding to the heady brew on a couple of tracks. The first track builds slowly but maintains a truly reflective feel throughout its array of soundscapes, while ‘Residential Love Song’ beefs up the drums, quickens the pace slightly, and adds layer upon layer of fuzz guitars, sky guitars, lead guitars and more guitars over the lurching bass and drums, and all to exquisite effect. As the guitars ring out beautifully in a sort of slow motion manner, the piece leads on to a gorgeous crescendo that takes you to heaven and beyond, and all in just under five minutes. Across the following 4 tracks you’ll hear more lurching rhythms, a sinuous violin line providing a new dimension to one track, drone guitars in an almost Fripp & Eno setting, only with the added bonus of bass & drums and some of the richest textural qualities you’ll hear, not to mention the 10^th track where you’ll find a bass line worthy of New Order in reflective mode.

489846
Weight: 150.00 g

Now where do you put this – Guitar? Psychedelic? Rock? Well, all three actually, because this is one of THE most powerful rock instrumental albums ever made! A trio of just guitars, bass and drums, track titles that are simply numbers and a quality of production that is out of this world - This really cannot fail to blow you away. Essentially it’s heavy duty riffing and scorching electric guitar work the likes of which you’ve never heard before, with drumming that threatens to blow a hole the size of Lancaster in your living room walls! But the best bit is the actual performance – every track is solidly structured, sounding like a real composition and not just some aimless jam or improvisation. I don’t know if the stuff is pre-written, but it sure as hell sounds like it. The bass work is dynamite, the guitar work is explosive – and the whole thing is nuclear! After you play this, you won’t come down for a year, never mind a month - This is one rock solid instrumental album that you will play till you die... and probably after that too! More incredible than words can describe – you just have to buy this album.

623774
Weight: 150.00 g

The debut solo album from Pascal Humbert of 16 Horsepower, and it’s an all-instrumental debut that will absolutely definitely appeal to anyone who liked the more reflective, instrumental guitar-dominated soundtrack work of Ry Cooder, with which this beautiful set of 12 songs shares more than a passing feeling, plus just a touch of ‘post-rock’ that gives it an edge. You can just feel the heat of the dusty roads and the arid desert as the mix of slowly flowing slide, acoustic & electric guitars, occasionally helped by drums and keyboards, glide over the screen like a slow-motion highway ride. Even though this is not soundtrack music, it really ought to be, yet it works just great as an album in it’s own right. Languid, slow-mid-paced, immaculately played, produced and composed, this is Cooder-meets-Tortoise style instrumental Americana at its finest, and it’s one stunning album.

430044
Weight: 150.00 g

Whoaah – This is unusual - But it’s also fantastic! Now, I’m no musician, so I can’t tell you what sort of guitar, or guitar effect he’s using to create the sound that you’ll hear from his guitar throughout much of this album, but it’s like nothing else I’ve ever come across.  Largely just guitar and bass, but with a sound that gives the impression of several guitars at play, this is a most extraordinary and exquisite work of instrumental guitar music that, as I said, is quite unique in today’s music scene - but it’s lovely stuff all the same. For the first couple of the 10 tracks, the electric bass rumbles down below and gives real depth to the pieces, while above this you’ll hear the lone guitar leads of Montgomery, multi-tracked presumably, and sounding like a sort of guitar hurdy-gurdy at times. With drones, chords, notes and textures flying along like a pilot-less aircraft in flames and gliding through the air in slow motion, maintaining its structure, but with bits flying off it at regular intervals. There’s an almost early Durutti Column-like feel to many of the pieces, and you could almost have seen this music emanating from the same stable – It’s got that same sort of quality and feeling to it.

388110
Weight: 150.00 g

A full sixty-two minute, 8-track album that should carry a government health warning! This CD opens and closes in the most fiery intensity, initially recalling the unforgettable dynamic power of the Mahavishnu Orchestra on track 1, only this offers huge muscular riffs and spiralling solos substituting for the sheer speed of Mahavishnu. Guitars fly and soar breathtakingly and the bass just grinds to skull-crunching effect, no more so than on the opener, which is one of the best opening tracks you’ll hear on a guitar based instrumental album. But the closer is just one destructive eight-minute monster that sounds like a nuclear force instrumental mix of all the great guitarists you could name. The rhythm section just strides out of the speakers and stomps its lead-lined boots all over your living room, closely followed by a guitar tornado that tears through everything in its path, with sizzling solos and crunching, grungy riffs that could rip the paper off your walls faster than the hottest of steam strippers could match! In between, the pace alternates between restrained, relaxed and full-on power, and without a doubt it’s one of the all-time great guitar albums without any doubt whatsoever!

907255
Weight: 150.00 g

Click here for more product information

It takes the combined talents of many a rock band to produce their own instrumental albums - If anything; this guy achieves a better result in the studio on his own! Primarily it’s an all instrumental guitar rock album, that’s nothing short of sensational, particularly as on most of the tracks, the guy makes it sounds like a real band is at work, when in actual fact, it’s all his own work. The guitar work is expressive, muscular and full of depth & emotion, covering the range from heavy fusion to bluesy rock, with the core melodic heart always on display, for this guy can write a mean tune, and that’s for sure. The guitar work has elements of all sorts of influences in it, from Beck and Vai to Akkerman and early Satriani. Every track is a gem, full of feeling, and played with passion, generally in rock/fusion mode, with nothing too flashy or intricate, just good solid playing and arranging. A quite superb album and one surely destined to put him up there at the top of the guitar rock instrumental tree.

635665
Weight: 150.00 g

Talk about a mighty start to an album, ‘She’s The One’ is a powerful, yet melodic mid-paced track, but with guitar work that would light up half of Yorkshire if plugged into the National Grid! It’s not heavy in the metal sense, but it just spirals on and upwards in a solid, soaring vein - four minutes of music that, by the end, will leave you wanting to return to the start and play it all over again before going any further. However, carry on to the 2^nd track: ‘Every Last Moment’ and you’ll find a slightly bluesier track, but dominated by yet more fantastic, emotional slow-mid paced guitar work that just wells up as the music pours forth from the speakers – The perfect mix of power and sensitivity. ‘Play That Funky Music’ starts with a surging riff before diving off in yet another area, this time underpinned by a chunky electric bass and lurching drums, as the guitar layers and solos steam ahead to produce a quite intense slice of instrumental funk-metal that, despite its origins, works brilliantly. As you might guess by now, this is a real treat for instrumental rock guitar fans that want their power and dynamics mixed with feeling, bite, melody and rhythmic solidity. There’s also a consistency of variation from the scorching electric guitarist, setting the playing standards and enjoyment levels high throughout the remainder of this 9 track CD. To quote the album sleeve: “Music can say more than words, if you just listen” – Never has a truer word been spoken.

987464
Weight: 150.00 g

Sometimes, admittedly very rarely, an album comes along that is so unique, creative and original as to be, not only ahead of its time, but also regarded as a genuine landmark in musical history. The 3 tracks on this album were recorded ten years ago, and even now the music is still ahead of its time, and can really be seen as one of the finest albums of the last 20 years. Refusing to be pigeon-holed - it's not just rock or fusion or jazz or psychedelic or Kraut rock laced - It actually stands outside of all of those frames of reference, and yet it is melodic and has tons of rhythmic complexities and subtleties, but above all, particularly on the opening track, it has a sound that is unlike anything else you will have encountered. The music is alive and organic, yet restrained and dynamic, mixing the crashing, driving, solid stop-start drumming with the constant, ringing electric guitar layers that run through the heart of the mix. Lead lines soar and dive in a manner unlike music made by any other guitarist - A flowing mix of power, delicacy, restraint, grace and beauty in a sea of tight, solid drums and splashing cymbals. Of the 3 tracks, the first is the epic forty-four minute title track, where an electric guitarist and drummer play a unique form of jamming improvisational music that’s different from any other guitar and drums based album in existence, mainly because of its structure, mood and sound. Track 2 is a nine-minute piece with a spacier mood and the final track at seven and a half minutes features a mix of intense cosmic, shimmering, melodic soundscapes with solid rhythms that surge forth.

995265
Weight: 150.00 g

Click here for more product information

The bottom line is that this is an instrumental 4 track / twenty-five minute EP from a band featuring two incendiary lead guitarists, bass player and drummer, who together have produced one of the finest instrumental guitar music debuts on the planet. It’s rock, but it’s not metal - It’s intense, loud and apocalyptic, but never overpowering, industrial or harsh - It’s molten music at its purest, yet it’s immaculately played/produced and has a huge, huge sound, yet the whole fabric is positively crystalline. But more than anything else, it posses crushing melodies, giant swathes of lead guitars, surging riffs, cataclysmic drums and bass, all playing the most heart-tugging compositions that are the epitome of loud and melodic at the same time. There’s no flashy solos, but plenty of red hot leads - No repetitive riffing, but a panoramic music backdrop that seems to go on forever, with punishing rhythms that are purity itself and a sense of dynamics the likes of which you’ll have rarely heard. I could listen to music like this forever and a day, simply because of the sheer feeling and emotive power that it not only possesses in itself, but brings out in the listener who allows themselves to dive into the deep and beautiful waters that make up this most intense and glorious of musical experiences. This is the sound of heaven from a guitar-driven band, and the only thing that you could possibly worry about, is how on earth they are ever going to top this - One of the finest electric guitar music debuts around!

493144
Weight: 75.00 g

Imagine a world where the likes of Neu and every guitar/drum based post-rock band that followed, had never existed. Other than that, everything else remains the same. Then, along comes the man with his Zen guitar. He fires it up, adds drums and…holy guitar, Batman...he produces an album that is jaw-dropping in its instrumental creativity and eye-popping in the whole sound of the musical tour-de-force that ensues. The drumming is like the forceful and insistent style of Klaus Dinger, only a bit more powerful, while the guitar work is multi-layered and full of incendiary electric slide guitar sections on compositions that positively glow. The added extra is intensity that you’ll be hard-pressed to find as such an enjoyable experience outside of albums by Hendrix, early Eno (the ‘Here Come The Warm Jets’ title track) or Neu. The 12 track times range between extended and short and the music is hard-hitting, but not rock - melodic and accessible, but really full-on and so full sounding as the buzz-saw guitar work positively glows white hot. But this is really unlike anything else you've ever heard before, as they cut a furious path through the airwaves. Overall, it's a guitar album that is genuinely new in its sound, style and approach, and as such, it comes highly recommended.

636853
Weight: 150.00 g

‘Desert Clouds’ is an instrumental CD that is essentially just one long track divided into four separate movements, and it’s just sensational! We’re talking melodic ‘ambient’, we’re talking relaxed, but not boring, we’re talking riveting, but not intense, and in the main, were talking total enjoyment for a wide range of music fans. This is instrumental music that just slips and slides over you like a warm summer breeze - so gorgeous and yet so substantial, with maximum use being made of musical space, chords and notes almost suspended in the ether as melodies languorously roll through the airwaves. It’s guitar-based, with synths and keyboards bathing the melodic guitar tones in gorgeous textured waves of sound, filling the soundstage with occasional steady percussive rhythms and spacey effects, with the main musical influences lodged in the genres occupied by Pink Floyd and Wavestar. A superb debut album!

804646
Weight: 150.00 g

Click here for more product information