Campese, Mike: Reset

There was a time where it felt like the shredders might just reign supreme and become the dominant force in the world of rock and metal. A plethora of uber-fret talents emerging in a mixture of guises - solo superstar, instrumental magician, or as the spearhead of a rocking metal outfit. Then the malaise set in and from that time forth the whole scene has often felt like one big stagnation. Unfortunately, the 11th studio album from Mike Campese sums this up perfectly, an undoubted master of the guitar indulging his abilities with workouts that illustrate every inch of the man’s skills, while forgetting one key thing - songwriting.

To be fair to Mike, this album was recorded during lockdown, so that the whole endeavour should be basically he himself alone with drummer Patrick Johansson, is maybe understandable. However, where Reset really falters is the complete lack of ‘band’ feel as you traverse a mixture of six instrumental workouts and six vocal led tracks, with Campese adding his unremarkable voice to his guitar, keyboard and bass contributions. It’s three instrumentals that open this album’s account and in many ways that goes to prove the issues with the vocalised numbers - namely that the singing feels like a compromise to acknowledge that most people don’t really want fully guitar instrumental albums at all, unless they have a few select names emblazoned across their fronts. “Fire� is indeed fiery, “Bee Eater� does kind of sound something like a crazed bee buzzing around and “Tension In Motion� certainly has, well, a lot of fret motion… Lyrically things are hardly pushing boundaries either, with 4 of the 6 tracks in which they appear featuring a lot of repetition, whereas “Dance� has only six lines of lyrics to its name.

Not for one second is Mike Campese’s guitar prowess in question. This guy is an amazing powerhouse of a fret burner and no mistake. And yet, with that in mind I’d be hard pressed to even recommend Reset to fans of six-string shred. There are countless guitarists out there offering up this kind of fare, and most are doing it better than this.

Track Listing
1. Fire 2. Bee Eater
3. Tension In Motion
4. The Truth
5. Reset
6. Dance
7. Waisted Time
8. Space Dragon
9. Talker
10. The Silent Weapon
11. Let It Ride
12. Elephants In The Backroom

Added: April 7th 2023
Reviewer: Steven Reid
Score:
Related Link: Mike Campese online
Hits: 422
Language: english

[ Printer Friendly Page ]
[ Send to a Friend ]