Mac, Peter: Dreaming In Neon

American guitarist Peter Mac has been around for quite a few years having six solo albums to his credit and has been the guitarist for the Milwaukee Buck's house band (Streetlife) for the past nineteen years. At age fourteen Mac switched from classical and jazz piano to guitar, inspired by the late Jimi Hendrix. His career has included many radio and television commercials and he has opened for many big name musicians including Dave Mason, Jeff Healey, Robin Trower and Adrian Belew. His new CD is entitled Dreaming In Neon.

Joining Mac (guitars, bass, keyboards) are Brian Dale (drums) and Ethan Bender (bass) with Sam Ecoff adding loops (track 2) and Dave Vartanian adding keyboards (tracks 8 and 11). This is a nice instrumental guitar album with lots of melodic flavor and very good musicianship. Mac is an accomplished player and he shows it throughout this CD. The songs are loaded with catchy riffs and emotive soloing and Mac is adept at playing slow or fast, at times even teetering on neo classical shredding. The songs are solid and well written with no one tune sticking out further than the rest. One gets the feeling that Mac is holding back a little as he has the ability to push his instrumental playing even further still. I would like to see Mac taking a few more chances musically as it just might be enough to make his guitar stand out in what is a very saturated genre.

Highlights include the richly melodic "Loves Anthem" where the keyboards give an added layer of moodiness and "This Life Is All We Have", a nice slice of heavy instrumental guitar based rock. The poppy/jazzy title track takes on some prettier textures with strong melodies as does the jazzy "Purgatory" with Latin influenced acoustic guitar. The most ambitious song may be the jazz/fusion tinged "The Bad Genie" featuring excellent guitar riffs and some of the best bass work on the album.

Although this album did not blow me away, it is good enough to warrant some repeated spins and is an enjoyable listen nonetheless. Dreaming In Neon is a solid album of instrumental guitar rock that should please fans of the genre.

Track Listing:
1. This Life Is All We Have
2. Heavy World
3. Loves Anthem
4. Dreaming In Neon
5. Inspired
6. NDL
7. Blindsided
8. Missing
9. Purgatory
10. The Bad Genie
11. The Mentor

Added: December 23rd 2010
Reviewer: Jon Neudorf
Score:
Related Link: Artist's Official Site
Hits: 3212
Language: english

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