PRIVATE PARTS & PIECES V - TWELVE

I really dig ANTHONY PHILLIPS, but this album doesn't do it for me! It's cleverly titled in that it refers both to the number of months in a calendar year AND the number of strings on his guitar. Song #1 is entitled "January", song #2 "February", and so forth, down to #12 "December". I think Ant is an awesome guitar player, and certainly one of the best 12- string players in the business. But it's very hard to pull off an entire album of one person playing a 12-string guitar without any other instrumentation (I don't think there is even any over-dubbing on this). It'd be kind of like listening to 64 minutes of Frank Sinatra singing a cappella. He's got a great voice, for sure, but that format would be a tough sell! That said, there are some spine tingling moments to be plumbed on TWELVE. As always, Ant employs all his best techniques, from strumming the strings so hard, you think he'll break them, to cradling so delicately, you have to strain to hear them! He uses every inch of every string, for grabbing chords, picking, and harmonics (I think AP has found more places on a string to make harmonics than anyone else knew existed!). All of the tracks would stand up just fine - mixed in with some other material. But all them, put together on a "concept" album, "leaves" me feeling a bit like song #10 "October"