Sick Instrumental Guitar!

Without Words, the first album of Phil Lewis, is a very connected collection of instrumental rock'n'roll. Built as it was à.la.mode at the time where vinyls were a huge success, this album points out incontestably some leaders of the Seventies and Eighties. Before reading the influences on the site of Mr. Lewis, it was fairly easy to name some of them: Joe Satriani, for the hardness of sound which we can find in some parts of the album, and others like Little Drama, Steve Vai, for the emotion and the stamp of the guitar, and David Gilmour, because of the intensity. An other name would be added easily to this list, even if it is not an influence of the artist, which would be Eric Johnson and his Cliffs of Dover. The sound and the casting of the notes are similar for the two guitarists without being too resembling.

In a whole, the album touches several types of music: rock'n'roll, of course, progressive and hard, blues and even classic. That is the fruit of the versatility of the guitarist, who also composed all the other instruments. Thus, the result is very satisfying: we have the right to certain songs that have an awesome rythym, directed by an involving guitar, and to others, more serious, which reach a certain level of intensity. The use of the pedal for purposes in the principal riff of the part Catch 22 is very stimulant. While E Blues, which is inevitably blues, is partly acoustic and hangs on as of the first listening. The very soft song, Canon, points out Mozart while being very current and causes an effect of beauty which succeeds it very well. The last part, So Little, So Much concludes the album carefully, whereas the titled song gives a more different aspect of Lewis. Indeed, the guitar which composes it reminds me a bit John Petrucci, in some solos of Liquid Tension Experiment more specifically. The album is quite simply a musical success, but remains to see whether the public always appreciates this music which entirely had its place in the musical trading of the Seventies.

Two thumbs up for this excellent album, which shows well that we are far from having discovered all the instrumental rock'n'roll out there and that it is not obsolete to present such compositions.

Sébastien Rioux

Phil's Official Website: http://www.phillewisguitar.com/index.htm