DAVID BARRET TRIO

This is a solo album by David Barrett, who I must admit is new to me. It certainly lives up to its title and David plays a mixture of 6 and 12 string electric and acoustic, classical and steel guitars, laud and mandolin. There are 12 tracks mainly three or four minutes long and a total play time of 46:16. I liked the mixture of tracks with some almost all acoustic and some really electronic orientated. The playing to my ears is first class and produces a wonderful dynamic range of sounds and music vistas. Some tracks are quite slow and some have a quite varied pace. My favourite track, Seascape is a musical delight of acoustic guitar and electronic sounds. Overall I really enjoyed this instrumental album and to me its four stars.

If Alex Liefson decided to take control of Rush, that's what it would sound! With only one album, the band release a DVD consisting of songs from their Sonar album and 2 new songs. The work of Alex Liefson has help to create that Rush's sound. The use of 12 strings guitar and the sound of many of the songs take you back to the song "Xanadu". The first song of the set "Dive" is the darkest and heaviest song of the show. The music is instrumental with with one exception for the song "Belmonte" sing by Paul Reid, and there's no keys here. The guitar player David Barrett use the steel guitar to this guitar dominated music. "A Whisper to Thunder" has some nice build up and is another standout track. "The Great Eastern Sun" has a lot of Alex's arrangements and has a nice ending. The last song "The Elegant Universe" that will be out on the next album is a perfect ending to this concert. There is some nice visuals to this performance with lasers and a very good audio mix that let's you hear clearly the bass and drums. Ironically the sound of each instrument is better captured that on the latest Rush's release "Clockwork Angels".

The stamps of Alex Liefson sensibility is all over the place on this release that you can swear he has done more than working on the arrangements and the recording of this release. It's a guitar oriented album with folk, exotic (flamenco) flavors on the light side and on the heavy side, it's more classic rock and heavy rock oriented. The Rush's influence is coming from the latest period of the Canadian band. Some guitars riffs are reminiscent of Steve Howe with the use of the steel guitar, and at times Jimmy Page, but you can also hear some guitars structures similar to the band Anathema. The versatility of the guitars is completed with bass, including the moog Taurus pedals, and a nice rhythm section, which is not as strong as Neil Peart, but has some delicate complexity. The album is instrumental except on the song "Belmonte". This is a nice release with plenty of beautiful compositions that is promising for the future of the band, a second album is about to see the day.