GAMALON

I was surprised that these guys are from Buffalo the closest American city to where I am being north of Toronto. This is their debut from 1987 a bleak time for adventerous music that lasted into the early 90's. An interesting lineup as we get two guitarists, drums and bass along with piano on two tracks. This album smokes!

Top three tunes would include the opener "Billy's Salon" which is catchy and uptempo with guitar over the bass and drums. The two guitarists trade off after 3 minutes, pretty cool. It settles as the drumming impresses after 4 minutes then it kicks back in. "Ooh...Babe" is a beautiful song with the laid back guitar soaring. Just gorgeous and the guitar will start to light it up before 3 minutes. I'm not as big a fan of "The King" or "Black Licorice" for the guitar style more than anything as they are quite jazzy here. "Cabin #14" is my other top three. Solid drumming and great sounding bass lines but I love that guitar playing over top. Heavy guitar around 1 1/2 minutes as they amp it up. The guitar is lighting it up before 4 minutes. Drums then become the focus for about a minute then the guitar returns. The closer is interesting as it's all the drummer yet it almost sounds electronic.

A pleasant surprise given the year it was released, the only other Jazz album I like from this year is David Torn's "Cloud About Mercury".