COAST TO COAST

The album gets off to an energetic start with both "User Friendly" and "Colleteral Damage". Both of these tracks greatly showcase the chops of the band, and show that while the group is named after the guitarist, Morse gives plenty of room for his bandmates to shine (Bassist Dave LaRue in particular).

"Get It In Writing" is a charming melodic tune with emphasis placed back on the guitars with minimal but appropriate rhythm section contributions. "Morning Rush Hour" brings the energy level back up with some more fluid guitar work (what else with Morse?), but not as memorable as most other tracks on the album. "Runaway Train" is the most Dregsian moment of the album with Morse's own take on bluegrass. "Long Lost" has it's moments of beauty, but overall fairly uninteresting compared to the rest of the album. For some reason, I can hear "The Oz" being played over a title sequence to some sort of early-90s family-friendly TV show. It is a fairly simple but memorable song.

"Over Easy" does for the listener what it says in the title; it is an easy song to swallow. It puts LaRue back into the spotlight with a nice bass solo, though I wouldn't rank this song up among the album highlights. "Cabin Fever" has a nice southern rock vibe to it. "Flat Baroque" is a nice acoustic guitar piece with some bass accompaniment that surprisingly doesn't sound out of place among the electric guitar pieces.

To conclude, this album is a good listen for "User Friendly", "Collateral Damage", and "Flat Baroque" alone. The rest of the songs make this album rather solid with no overwhelming weak spots. Three stars, one for each member of Steve Morse's trio.