FLAT TIRE

UK artist Allan HOLDSWORTH is among the living legends in the world of music. A musician especially renowned by fellow musicians and music insiders, his output has been a source of inspiration for a vast multitude of artists and admired by even more. He's been a member of many notable bands over the years, but it is as a solo artist he is best known. "FlatTire" is a studio album first released in 2001. In 2013 it was reissued by the US label Moonjune Records.

"FlatTire" comes across as a slightly flawed production, or at least one where the qualities have faded with time. Mainly due to the synthesizer sounds, which are much more sterile and cold than the sounds produced by contemporary synthesizer setups. Instrumentalists will still have a field day in listening to this material, considering how the music is performed on a guitar synthesizer, but others should approach this album with a bit of caution. As far as the material is concerned it's fairly equally divided between what I'd describe as film score music and jazz rock, both styles explored with the expertise you'd expect from an artist of Holdsworth's stature, but with the sterile sounding instrument sounds at least for me a detrimental feature.