FULL SCRAPE

Whoopgnash's second release, Full Scrape, offers fusion rock fans another solid offering of virtuosity in axe. John Erickson continues this outing with a cascading flurry of Holdsworth-ian, dreamy, chordal escapades -- spiced with superb legato chops I find pleasantly Bill Connors-like.

Erickson's voicings of solos and effects treatments was more like Eric Wollman and Carl Roa of Magic Elf. This reverbed, delay echoes created that "in the next room" essence -- thereby rendering most solos as coming from a "distance" vs. an "in your face" attack's powerful presence. Don't get me wrong here -- the chops are solid and satisfy but lacked that immediate "headspace" present in most all the chordal passages. So I was left with this release being biased in its impact residing mainly in chords and roll-picking arpeggios song to song. Soloing, (my favorite section of fusion), took a more subtle "backseat" sonically speaking. Track six, "Eine" was more to my tastes mix-wise in its Connors' Assembler type of pushing the solo to the forefront of the mix with a "punching out" and therefore assailing the listener with more note-phatness, power & glory. "In Memory Of" held spectacular solo section riffage that really shined but was too mixed down & faraway -- "burning up off in echo land" -- to fully deliver all the umph it held.

Overall, I'd recommend this as a solid fusion release but I found the mix not to my taste as I wanted to hear Erickson's superb soloing more than distant callings or echoes of the chordal cries.