Guitarist Anythony Curtis has assembled an all-star cast for his latest album, Book of the Key. Joining Curtis are Tony Levin on bass, Mike Keneally on keyboards, Jeff Gauthier on violin, and Lewis Pragasam on drums, and they prove to be quite the formidable line-up. The music on Book of the Key is a very textured and spacey mix of prog rock, jazz fusion, and avant-garde sounds.
Mr. Curtis has a very interesting guitar style that utilizes lots of different effects, such as wah-wah, chorus, delay, distortion, and whammy bar, that is at times similar to David Torn, Adrian Belew, David Fuiczynski, Reeves Gabrels, Vernon Reid, or Terje Rypdal. On the CD's opening cut, the moody "The Ruins", the guitarist lays down shards of molten lead passages while Levin's bass just bubbles and boils underneath, mixing effectively with Keneally's 70's influenced Fender Rhodes melodies. There's also some manic, upbeat tracks, such as the raucous "Gallabalba", which sees Levin in amazing form popping gymnastic bass lines alongside the crashing drums of Pragasam, while Curtis is ripping tons of distorted whammy bar leads. You can really hear Curtis' emotional side on the gut- wrenching "Hymn to Helios", a mellow piece that features plenty of passionate and tortured lead passages. "Balinus" leads in with some majestic violin work from Gauthier before Pragasam struts his stuff with some very technical percussion work underneath the searing leads of Curtis. The real highlight of the CD though is the epic 23-minute title track, a bubbling couldron of hot, groovy playing from the whole cast. Featuring meaty guitar riffs, wild leads, searing violin, jazzy keyboards, and a frenzied rhythm section, this song is almost like the second coming of the Mahavishnu Orchestra.
Anthony Curtis has put together quite a line-up here, and they have delivered on all levels. Hopefully this is not just a one shot deal, and these guys get together again for another round of musical mayhem. Highly recommended!
Track Listing
1) The Ruins (12:15)
2) Gallabalba (2:16)
3) Inland Sea (3:09)
4) Hymn to Helios (3:31)
5) Saturnalia (3:57)
6) Balinus (3:58)
7) Oracle (0:53)
8) Book of the Key (23:25)
9) From Towers to the Dome of Heaven (2:08)
10) Hikmat Al-Ishraq (18:06)
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